Pitch committee wants to have the cake and eat it too

Discussion on pitches in this country among cricket fans is almost as vehement these days as matters regarding team selection. It was never like this but the debacle in Australia has changed priorities. Suddenly everyone is talking like an expert about fast wickets, turning tracks, bouncy pitches and so on. Suddenly the Board of Control for Cricket in India is aware of the importance of the surface on which the games are played in this country and the officials are all convinced that there has to be drastic changes in the thinking of preparation of wickets. That is, if they are serious about the team not being subjected to humiliation and ridicule on foreign soil again.

The deliberations at the pitches and ground committee meetings received lukewarm response in the past. However, with there being so much talk of late about the urgent need to change the nature of wickets in the country, it is but natural that whenever the committee meets these days, the deliberations attract considerable attention. And utmost importance was given to the meeting of the committee which had its sitting at Chennai on Wednesday.

The committee wants to have the cake and eat it too. It is keen to have ``sporting wickets'' as committee chairman K Srikkanth kept emphasizing while briefing reporters at the end of the meeting but would not want India to surrender the home advantage. There is a very thin line here but the committee thinks it is possible to skate along it.

The immediate objective is to prepare sporting tracks for the games against South Africa. The first test of how serious the authorities are about changing the wickets for the better will be seen at Mumbai and Bangalore, the venues for the two Tests against South Africa. Srikkanth was emphatic that the committee had recommended that there should not be any more `bad' or `underprepared' wickets where the ball would turn from the first day. In his view, sporting tracks are those that would encourage seam bowlers over the first two days and then gradually aid spin from the third day. ``It is imperative that the matches should last five days and not end in 3-1/2 days'' said the former Indian captain.

But Srikkanth emphasized that the committee could only recommend the changes. Ultimately it was left to each association to effect the changes. But he struck an optimistic note when he said the authorities have ``promised to support us.'' He also maintained that it was possible for every centre to prepare sporting tracks.

Srikkanth admitted he was aware that in some cases, the changes could not be made overnight. ``The preparation of such wickets should be done in a phased manner and over a long term period.'' He said it was encouraging to note that even Indian captain Sachin Tendulkar had said that he was not for bad tracks or those with an uneven bounce.

On domestic cricket, however he advocated a change in the nature of wickets straightaway. ``Certainly there should not be any more wickets like the tracks we saw at Ahmedabad for the Challenger Trophy. I have noticed from media reports that Kapil Dev has come out against such wickets which are heavily loaded in favour of the batsmen.'' He pointed out that there was still so much domestic cricket in the season with many Ranji Trophy Super League and knock out games to be played.

What if by preparing sporting tracks, the Indians surrender the advantage and lose the games to South Africa. Would there be any rethinking on changing the nature of the wickets? Srikkanth played safe, very much unlike the manner in which he played the game. ``We shall cross that bridge when we come to it.''