ICC cautions Kingsmead, Queen's Park Oval for 'poor' outfield

Dubai, Sep 8 (CRICKETNMORE): The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Thursday handed official warnings under its pitch and outfield monitoring process to Kingsmead in Durban and the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain.

Kingsmead hosted the first Test between South Africa and New Zealand while Queen's Park Oval played host to the fourth and final Test between West Indies and India last month. 

Both the rain-marred matches were heavily curtailed because of "poor" outfield conditions, forcing the ICC to issue sanctions after the respective match referees Andy Pycroft and Ranjan Madugalle submitted their official reports. Bangladesh happy as two-tier Test plan shelved.

Madugalle and Geoff Allardice, the ICC's general manager, reviewed Cricket South Africa's (CSA) response to the "poor" rating, while Allardice and match referee David Boon reviewed West Indies Cricket Board's (WICB) response.

Since this was the first occasion either ground had received a "poor" rating, the grounds stood to receive either a warning or a fine not exceeding $15,000, along with "a directive for appropriate corrective action".

"The sanctions take into account Durban and Port of Spain venues' history of producing good conditions for international cricket and commitment by both the boards to take appropriate steps to ensure similar events are not repeated in future," an ICC statement said. India seem to have been cornered in ICC.

"Both the matters were decided in accordance with Clause 4 of the process," the statement added.