Ekana Cricket Stadium Lucknow pitch report: Lucknow Cricket Stadium pitch report for IND vs SA 1st ODI

Ekana Cricket Stadium Lucknow pitch report: A second-string team India will face the mighty South Africans in the ODI series.

After successful triumphs against Australia and then South Africa in home T20I series post the Asia Cup debacle, team India will now play a three-match ODI series versus South Africa, with the first match taking place on October 6, at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, in Lucknow.

It is worth of a mention that none of the Indian players who are part of the 15-men T20 World Cup squad will be part of the three ODIs, as a relatively young side including six uncapped players and two maiden call-ups have been included in the squad which will be led by Shikhar Dhawan.

As for South Africa, barring Tristan Stubbs and Rilee Rossouw, the management has retained the rest of the players in the ODI squad, who were part of the T20I series as well.

Hello from Lucknow 👋

Preps for the #INDvSA ODI series begin. 👍 👍#TeamIndia | @mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/0y1qjtqmSU

— BCCI (@BCCI) October 4, 2022

Ekana Cricket Stadium Lucknow pitch report

The Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow has hosted a total of three ODIs till date, with all of them taking place in November 2019, between West Indies and Afghanistan. Thus, both India and South Africa will play their first ODI at this venue on Thursday.

Overall a decent enough pitch for the batters, the black soil pitch at this surface does provide the pacers the extra zip and bounce off the surface, with the spinners also likely to come into the game during the latter stage.

Most recently, during the three T20 matches of the ongoing Legends League Cricket 2022 at this venue, the average score was a rather paltry 144.6, with the pacers taking full advantage of the pitch condition upfront.

Overall, the pitch is still skewed in favour of the batters, who are likely to pile on enough runs on the board after spending some time on the pitch.