ICC to inspect pitches for World Cup

Cricinfo staff

August 28, 2010

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	The Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi will be among the venues inspected by Andy Atkinson on his visit to India next month© AFP Enlarge
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The ICC's pitch consultant, Andy Atkinson, will be visiting India in early September to inspect six out of the eight venues in the country for the 2011 World Cup. Among the six is the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi, the host for the controversial India-Sri Lanka ODI in December 2009 which was abandoned due to an unfit pitch.

"Atkinson is on a week-long visit in the first week of September to inspect six out of eight World Cup match hosting centres in India," Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI's chief administrative officer, said.

Mohali and Nagpur are the venues Atkinston will not be visiting. "He would be visiting the other six centres (Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Ahmedabad). Anyway barring Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, the other centres are to host international matches against Australia and New Zealand and we would know their preparedness," Shetty said. "Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi would host some first-class games before the World Cup."

Atkinson had inspected the Kotla pitch on February 14 and 15 earlier this year and was happy with theremedial work under the supervision of Venkat Sundaram, former head of the BCCI curators' panel. The ground continued to host IPL games this summer.