BCCI’s pads, gloves can’t keep out Patiala chill

Here’s why:

• Because of the fog, not one of 10 matches played in the tournament could see 100 overs — 50 a side — being completed. The maximum was 37 overs; the average was around 30 overs a side

• The abridged version of cricket meant that not a single player scored a century throughout the tournament. The highest scorer was rising star Robin Uthappa, with 60, 57, 60, 60

• If the players had a tough time on the field, things were worse off it. Many of them were staying in hotel rooms that didn’t have room heaters — in a town where the night-time temperatures are around 5 degrees C — and so spent all their time huddled under blankets.

‘‘We weren’t provided heaters in our hotel rooms. It was nothing less than torture as we aren’t used to such conditions,’’ said India vice-captain and South Zone skipper Dinesh Kartik.

Once on the ground, the teams would sit for several hours in the cold and blustery conditions waiting for the umpires’ nod. Players wondered why they were being made to play in freezing cold when the World Cup itself will be held in Bangladesh in February — when average temperatures hit the late 20s.

‘‘Conditions were not conducive for cricket; a tournament of such importance should not have been organised here at this time of the year. It should have been held in the South or West zones’’, said Vinod Dhamasker, one of the tournament’s two match referees.

M.P. Pandove, secretary of the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), which organised the tournament for BCCI, said he’d cautioned the BCCI ‘‘as early as July’’ against staging the tournament in this part of the country during this time of year.

Accepting the flaws in the rotational system, BCCI joint secretary Ratnakar Shetty told The Indian Express: ‘‘I assure you this thing will not be repeated again. BCCI has to deviate from this practice (rotation policy), definitely.’’

This wasn’t the first time it’s happened, Shetty pointed out; last year the under-17 and U-19 tournaments held in winter in Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh met the same fate.

Anurag Thakur, the North Zone member of the Under-19 selection panel, also admitted that ‘‘players have suffered due to the weather, the tournament could have been organised somewhere else.’’ However, he said the selectors had widened their scope by selecting players on the basis of their performances in other zonal tournaments and also in the recent Asia Cup in Pakistan.