The dressing room facilities at the St Xaviers College ground at Thumba in Thiruvananthapuram where Kerala are playing Uttar Pradesh in the fourth round of the Ranji Trophy is once again under the scanner. Following a heavy downpour on Friday afternoon, which led to stumps being called early on Day 3, there was a severe water leakage in the dressing room.
According to visuals shared to The Indian Express, rain water can be seen leaking from the roof of the dressing room in multiple places. It is understood that few of the players had their kit bags damaged because of the leakage as questions continued to be raised about the Ranji Trophy venues.
Interestingly, this is not the first time the venue’s facilities have come under the spotlight. Last season, former India batsman Manoj Tiwary, while playing his last season for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy, shared his thoughts about the ground on a Facebook live session.
Heavy downpour, severe water leakage in the dressing room leads to stumps early on Day 3 between Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. https://t.co/ilsZkupkld pic.twitter.com/hREfUjJXVd
— Express Sports (@IExpressSports) November 8, 2024
“We are playing Kerala in a ground, not a stadium despite there being one built years ago, we are being asked to play in a ground on the outskirts of the State. The dressing rooms are such that you cannot even strategise properly since our dressing room and the opposite dressing room are so close to each other that you can hear what the others are saying. There is no privacy. I hope that this is looked into in the future,” Tiwary had said.
In the last couple of seasons the facilities at First-class venues have come under spotlight due to their inefficiency to deal with the situations. In the opening round, play wasn’t possible on Day 2 of Madhya Pradesh’s match against Karnataka at Indore’s Holkar Stadium because of overnight rain. Since Gwalior was hosting a T20I between India and Bangladesh, the MPCA had shifted the covers from Holkar to the international fixture. As a result, because of slight overnight rain, no play was possible on Day 2.
In the previous round, Karnataka’s match against Bihar at Moin-ul-Haq stadium witnessed outfield issues because of overnight rain.
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