A farcical abandonment at North Sydney Oval has reignited Australian cricket's pitch debate.
Cricket Australia vowed to launch an investigation on Monday following Sunday's one-day fixture between NSW and Victoria that was marred by a dangerous pitch.
Victoria, who were awarded the win and a run-rate bonus point, reached 4-108 after 26 overs in their pursuit of 145 when umpires called the game off.
CA will look at whether the umpires made the right decision, its timing, and the drop-in wicket that caused some balls to rear at batsmen.
The governing body is confident it was a one-off anomaly at the venue.
North Sydney will host another one-day game on Tuesday, to be played on a different pitch. There are no plans to strip the inner-city venue of hosting rights for the upcoming women's Ashes Test.
Cricket NSW chief executive Andrew Jones, who raged on Twitter that "all officials involved should be fired immediately" because of the "ridiculous decision", is expected to avoid censure.
There are several issues at play following an episode that left both sides deeply unsatisfied - and shaped the one-day tournament's finals race.
The divisive question of what constitutes an unsafe pitch is near the top of the list.
Nobody will dispute player safety is paramount but many leading figures in the sport have lamented the docile nature of Australian decks, especially drop-ins, during recent years.
"If you're a batsman ... and you want to bat (anywhere in the world), you'd pick Australia in a heartbeat," coach Darren Lehmann remarked to ABC Radio on the weekend.
Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc have expressed similar sentiments.
Starc, who claimed three wickets and was at his aggressive best on Sunday, was one of many players who seemed stunned to hear the game was over.
"Unless we play on perfect surfaces, we may as well not play cricket under these rules," NSW bowling coach Geoff Lawson fumed on Sky Sports Radio.
"We lost three wickets to balls that jumped and hit people on the gloves but the umpires thought that was OK.
"To a degree we feel we've been penalised for having better players - we could get the ball to do more ... bowl more accurately."
NSW opener Daniel Hughes was more diplomatic.
"Player safety is the most important thing," Hughes said on Monday.
"The wicket was definitely dangerous and the right decision was made."
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