English cricket club gets points deduction after pitch is damaged by heat and Bollywood filming
LONDON (AP) — Storied English cricket club Leicestershire faces relegation after it was docked 27 points for the poor state of its playing surface, despite the head groundsman arguing that the conditions were due to extreme heat and a Bollywood film shoot just days before a game.
The points deduction drops the club to the bottom of the Division One table, although it has until Sept. 29 to appeal.
Leicestershire beat Glamorgan on Aug. 20 but the match referee reported 43 instances of uneven bounce caused by cracks in the ground. Cricket's regulator later ruled that the pitch at Grace Road was below standard and withdrew the 19 points from the victory over Glamorgan, in addition to an eight-point penalty.
Another eight-point deduction was suspended until the end of the season in case of a further breach of pitch regulations.
Leicestershire's head groundsman Callum Lewin argued that mitigating circumstances meant he could not work on the pitch properly.
“There was a lot of circumstances leading up to the game that were just out of my control, such as the weather was 35 degrees (Celsius, 95 Fahrenheit) and we had an unscheduled Bollywood filming event four days before," Lewin told the England and Wales Cricket Board's regulator. "I wasn’t allowed to work on the pitch. I wasn’t allowed to cover it or anything."
As a consequence, Lewin said the moisture readings were below expected, despite heavy watering to compensate for eight continuous hours of exposure to a blazing sun.
But his argument was not viewed as a valid excuse by the regulator since the filming only lasted one day and it was ultimately down to the club to take preventative measures.
“Risk management should have envisaged the need to incorporate protection of the pitch during the Bollywood event,” the regulator wrote.
Leicestershire was playing Hampshire in its penultimate match of the season when the decision came out on late on Wednesday night.
Following that match, there was one round left, with Leicestershire away to Warwickshire starting on Sept. 24.
The topic of the Bollywood film was reportedly a forthcoming biopic of the former India captain Sourav Ganguly.
An elegant attacking batter, Ganguly scored 16 test and 22 one-day international centuries, amassing more than 18,000 runs across both formats. He also spent some time playing in the the county championship in the early 2000s.
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