The curator of the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow has paid the price for preparing a poor pitch for the second India-New Zealand T20I, which was held on Sunday.

After India captain Hardik Pandya slammed the wicket, calling it a “shocker of a pitch”, the curator has been removed from his job.

New Zealand could make only 99/8, but India struggled to reach the target, eventually winning by a ball to spare on a turning track.

“The curator has been removed and replaced by Sanjeev Kumar Agarwal, who isa very experienced curator. We will turn things around ina month.

“A lot of domestic cricket was already played on all the centre wickets ahead of the T20I and the curator should have left one or two strips for an international game. The surface was overused and due to the bad weather, there was not enough (time) to prepare a fresh wicket,” a UPCA source said.

Agarwal, who has prepared pitches in Bangladesh in the past before being removed in October last year, has been tasked to set things right as far as pitch-making is concerned. He will work closely with veteran BCCI curator TaposhChatterjee, said the source.

The T20I series decider will be played in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

Hardik has not been happy with the surfaces on offer so far in the series.

“To be honest, it was a shocker of a wicket... I don’t mind difficult wickets. I am all up for that, but these two wickets (in the first two games) are not made for T20. Somewhere down the line, the curators of the grounds that we are going to play in should make sure they prepare the pitches earlier,” Hardik said after the six-wicket win in Lucknow.

Written with inputs from PTI