AFG vs NZ: For the first time in my life, Greater Noida's 'huge mess' made me hate my city

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What would have been a historic occasion for a city searching for its identity even after 33 years since its inception, turned out to be an absolute nightmare. As per the official record, Greater Noida celebrates its foundation day on January 28, 1991, but it hasn’t been able to carve its own identity, often referred to as its older twin town Noida.

From hosting India’s first Formula 1 race to Moto GP to Auto Expo, Greater Noida, a twin city located nearly 25 kilometres away from Noida, has hosted several big-ticket events over the years but hasn’t been able to carve its own identity.

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If you have two siblings in your family, no matter how similar they are, it’s frustrating when someone steps over you and gets the recognition which you had toiled hard for.

For someone like me, who has lived in the city his entire life, my frustration knows no bounds when the city’s older namesake Noida gets worldwide recognition and Greater Noida is left lurking in oblivion.

Adding another feather to its cap, when Greater Noida was awarded a historic Test match between Afghanistan and New Zealand, I was over the moon; telling my friends that the city, I call home, would be hosting its first-ever international Test match.

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With the weather deteriorating in the build-up to the match, this excitement turned into doubts, with me wondering if the ground had the necessary facilities in place to pull off a match of this magnitude, without any hiccups.

As it turned out I wasn’t wrong. My apprehensions about the stadium’s facilities turned out to be true as the opening day of the Test match was abandoned without a ball bowled. Even though the city witnessed good sunlight for the majority of the day, the groundsmen couldn’t dry up the playing area.

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The city that otherwise boasts a world-class infrastructure, let me down for the first time since I started living here. Greater Noida’s Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex had a golden opportunity to put itself on the world map but it failed big time.

The lack of preparedness was appalling to see. The ground staff was not only inexperienced but also inadequate. Most of them had never worked on a cricket field before. Super Sopper, the best machine to dry up the excessive water clogged on the ground, didn’t come into action until 1 pm.

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After the venue was blacklisted by the BCCI in 2017 over fixing during corporate games, the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA), which manages the ground, had a chance to redeem its image by staging a historic game, but it certainly didn’t care.

“This is a huge mess, we are never coming back here. The players are also unhappy with the facilities here,” an ACB official said, as quoted by NDTV.

“We had spoken with the concerned people well in advance and were assured by the stadium guys that everything will be in order (pertaining to the media facilities),” he added.

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What’s worse was that the stadium, which hosted a pink ball Duleep trophy game in 2016 and Afghanistan’s several limited-overs games in the past, hasn’t improved a bit. It has deteriorated even further.

“Nothing has changed since we came here. It's not improved one bit,” said another ACB official.

With an overnight downpour, the second day‘s play, which was supposed to start half an hour early to accommodate lost time, has been delayed for the same reason. It’s a shame that the city struggling to come out of the shadows of its older sibling and carve its own identity has lost a golden opportunity to do that.

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