The Trinidad and Tobago vs Leeward Islands match in the West Indies Championship was abandoned as a draw on Tuesday due to a dangerous pitch at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. The decision was taken during the third day’s play in the morning session after a delivery from Jayden Seales struck the batter Jeremiah Louis on the helmet.
The ball reared sharply from a good length and after being hit on the helmet, Louis was left frustrated, who slapped the pitch while also booting his helmet towards square leg in anger. Louis also received medical attention after the incident and was stretchered off and taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
There was a lengthy delay after the incident and in the meantime, the umpires,ย Leslie Reifer and Zahid Bassarath, consulted the match referee, Johnathan Blades, and the groundstaff. After a long discussion, the match officials informed captainsย Joshua Da Silva and Justin Greaves that the match had been abandoned.
Leewards Islands coach gives an update on Louis’ health
Leewards Islands coach Wilden Cornwall hoped that no major damage was done toย Jeremiah Louis. He stated that it was devastating to see the way the batter was hit. “He’s in the hospital at the moment.ย I just hope that everything goes well for him and [there is] no really serious damage. It was really devastating to see exactly what took place this morning,” he told CWI’s live stream.
Cricket West Indies later released a statement stating that Louis was ‘reported to be in stable condition’.
Was the pitch under-prepared for the match?
Interestingly, it took almost seven sessions of play for the umpires to call off the match that was played on pitch that Cornwall felt was under-prepared. “To me, it wasn’t given the preparation of a four-day wicket, hence we see so many players get damagedโฆ The pitch has been misbehaving throughout the entire three days,” Cornwall said. A total of 27 wickets had fallen across the 147 overs of the match until the incident took place.
“Following discussions with the curator, it was determined [by the umpires] that the pitch could not be safely repaired without creating an unfair advantage and was therefore deemed unfit to resume, resulting in the match being abandoned as a draw,” Cricket West Indies later released an official statement.
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