By K.Datta Jan 9, 2007, 9:47 GMT
Once Dilip Vengsarkar, aka Colonel, was seen shopping for a few shiploads of South African clay. Jokes aside, it would not be a bad idea at all if the chairman of our national selection committee indeed gets to import it to overhaul cricket pitches in India.
At least Venkat Sunderam, former chairman of the cricket board's pitches committee, thinks so. He would not only welcome clay from South Africa but also some grass from there as well.
So crucial are pitches to cricket that at least half an hour is taken up for discussing pitch reports by the gentlemen with microphones before they welcome TV audiences with polite 'Good mornings' and get down to the task of actually commentating. Captains and curators are also dragged into discussion as cameras focus on close-ups of cracks and crevices on the pitch.
'Good that people are talking about pitches,' says Sunderam.
Sunderam visited over 130 grounds in his two-year stint with the Indian cricket board and made a close study of the pitch malaise afflicting Indian cricket which can described as follows: champion batsmen reared on Indian wickets awkwardly hop about on tracks overseas, as we saw recently in South Africa where India were blanked 0-4 in the one day series; quick bowlers toiling with scant reward on Indian wickets though they have it them to give enemy batters a dose of their own medicine on bouncy wickets; fielders scared of diving and making sliding tackles to save runs for fear of injury on poorly grassed outfields on home grounds.
Why can't we lay wickets that provide a fair degree of bounce? The reasons are not far to seek. Sunderam sums them up as follows: unsuitability of the soil, interference by captains and host associations; unprofessional 'sab chalta hai' approach; and a general lack of will.
Going by his experience, the very presence of the pitches committee members is unwelcome to administrators of state associations who would prefer wickets of their own liking.
All those tall scores in domestic matches are overrated and not a reliable index of their true worth, a fact that is rubbed in when our cricketers tour abroad.
So Sunderam pleads for scrapping the home and away system of matches, at least the elite division Ranji Trophy games to be played on neutral venues where wickets are not doctored according to the preference of this or that captain.
He stresses that wicket preparation is not a job that can trusted to just anyone and would like to see only retired first class cricketers entrusted with the job of curators after they are systematically trained for it.
Sunderam also suggests that the Indian cricket board should invest in setting up a special research institute for wicket preparation. It certainly has the resources to do so. Like golf architecture, preparation of cricket pitches is a highly specialized activity. Not any agricultural scientist or horticulturist is qualified is handle it, leave alone our 'malis' and gardeners.
Take the case of the wicket at Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla. When it was dug up and re-laid it didn't strike anyone to go in for a scientific analysis of the soil, though it could have been done for a fee at a specialist institute 10 km or so from the traditional venue.
The ideal clay content, which binds the soil, is said to be 50-55 percent, but at most places in our vast country it is less than half that proportion. It comes as no surprise when those in the fast bowling vocation complain against the lack of encouragement on heartless Indian tracks.
But the Rajasthan Cricket Association, which hosted few Champions Trophy matches in October, it must be said, was more thoughtful. It entrusted the task preparing the Sawai Man Singh Stadium wicket at Jaipur to a cricket coach-turned-curator Abdul Saeed, who shipped truckloads of black clay from a pond in Thagi, 40 km away. He had knowledge of its binding quality and the Jaipur wicket stood the test when one-day matches are played on it.
Ironically, when sporting wickets are prepared for domestic matches, cricketers themselves are among the first to complain. They make a pathetic sight against rising balls in South Africa or elsewhere overseas. It is there that the drawbacks in their technique are exposed.
Vengsarkar, who has shaken India's crazy cricket circles with a couple of bold decisions, with more expected to follow, better order those shiploads of South African earth if he has not actually done so.
Cricket centres back home could do with the cargo. If not from across the Indian Ocean, then some lesser known places like Thagi in Jaipur district well within our own shores.
(K. Datta is a sports commentator and a former editor of the Times of India. He can be contacted datta_rahul@rediffmail.com)
© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service
page: 1
THATS MY NAME DONT FORGET ITJan 11th, 2007 - 18:38:22
HAHAHHAHA THE POINT OF VIEW OF SAB CHALTA HAI hahahahahha THAT BY FAR IS THE FUNNIEST THING I HAVE EVER READ
Report this comment
Your Talkback on this Story