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Vengsarkar criticises aspects of Under-19 World Cup

Indian advisor to their side at the ICC Under-19 World Cup Dilip Vengsarkar has taken a swipe at the organisation of the event and criticised the choice of New Zealand's High Performance Centre at Lincoln University as the venue

Lynn McConnell
24-Feb-2002
Indian advisor to their side at the ICC Under-19 World Cup Dilip Vengsarkar has taken a swipe at the organisation of the event and criticised the choice of New Zealand's High Performance Centre at Lincoln University as the venue.
Vengsarkar has also criticised the food arrangements for the Indian players, and he said one player Maninder Bisla lost about five kilograms and lived mostly on milk and fruit.
Vengsarkar said the location of the event 20kms outside Christchurch made it difficult for teams to get into the central city for more ethnic dining, this being in spite of the fact that dining was available at the Lincoln township half a mile away from the University campus.
Vengsarkar said the tournament should have been played at New Zealand's major grounds.
He missed the bus with his comments.
The tournament was an age-group tournament and its location was assessed as ideal by the International Cricket Council.
The fact remains also that the tournament would have been lost being played at New Zealand's major grounds, because very few people would have turned up to watch.
His complaints about food matters also preclude the efforts that were made to accommodate the requests of all 16 sides competing in the event.
As for other complaints Vengsarkar also seems to have forgotten the advice that "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." That is a fact of life in international cricket. That is why cricket is different in the various countries of the world. Everyone has its own flavour, and just as New Zealand teams adapt when going to India so other teams are expected to adapt when coming here.
Tournament organiser Tim Murdoch said changes were made to the dining times for the Indian and Pakistan sides at their requests and there was a 90-minute window for all sides to have their meals.
Murdoch said he did not know about Bisla's problems with food but there were lots of food options available to all sides and many of the other teams had taken advantage of them.
Murdoch said the Indian response had not been reflected by other sides in the evaluations that had been received on the running of the tournament.
As far as the use of major grounds, Murdoch said this comment failed to appreciate that New Zealand's domestic competition, the State Shield, was being played at the same time as the tournament and that the grounds would not have been available, nor would the organisers have had the staff to move around the various venues.
"The ICC approved the grounds and felt they were entirely appropriate for the level of cricket being played," he said.
Vengsarkar also criticised the ICC for not dealing with throwing during the tournament.
"Junaid Zia, their medium pacer, threw the ball blatantly while bowling and would have put Shoaib Akhtar to shame," he said.
Vengsarkar said Sri Lankan umpire Asoka de Silva had reported Pakistan fast bowler Junaid for throwing but had not heard how he should be treated.
Murdoch said it had been agreed among the match officials before the tournament that players thought to have a suspect action would be reported under the accepted process and unless there was a blatant throwing episode, the players would not be called.
He said Junaid had been reported from a couple of games and two others were also reported, a player from Nepal and one from Scotland.
Murdoch had written to the ICC and alerted them over the reports.
He said de Silva had been aware of the system before the tournament started.