Kanpur, April 8: As the BCCI’s pitches committee chief Daljit Singh and local curator Shiv Kumar answered endless questions about the Green Park pitch, there was one man sitting in the stands with an all-knowing smile on his face.

Chotelal grew up around the central square when his father was a groundsman. Today, at 52, he can boast of a three-decade long association with the Green Park ground. He knows the 22 yards like the back of his soiled hands and his claims to be the real son of the black soil around here aren’t exaggerated.

His views about the brownish dry spin-friendly surface are obvious and predictable — identical to the ‘early help for pacers and spin-friendly later ‘ quotes dished out Daljit and Shiv Kumar not far away — but it’s his perspective to the pitch preparation that is an eye-opener.

In these days of curator-activism, Chotelal’s observations give an interesting twist to the green or brown debate and a grassroot-level viewpoint to the ground realities. For someone who has last count of the number of pitches he has prepared, there are two incidents that stand out in his mind. “In 1983, I prepared a green pitch for the India vs West Indies game and the consequences weren’t great,” he says. It was the game in which Malcolm Marshall’s fiery bouncer saw Sunil Gavaskar’s bat falling from his hands and India suffering an innings defeat. What followed was brickbats and Chotelal’s shelved his green experiment for good.

Other extreme

Then in 1996, Sachin Tendulkar led India against South Africa in the final game of the series in a do-or-draw scenario. A wiser Chotelal rolled out a brownish carpet with myriad designs on it. India’s big win had then coach Madan Lal appreciating the groundsman with a Rs 25,000 award. “Even Tendulkar was quite happy. He met me after the game and was so happy that he gave me all the money that he had in his pocket,” says Chotelal.

In the background of such an diverse reactions from players, the hands that make pitches are always edgy. “It is always a safe option to create a pitch that has low bounce and turn. Our batsman love the ball that comes at about knee level and obviously our main strength, the spinners, love a turner,” he says.

Once in a while, one can get a Kishore Pradhan or a Dhiraj Parsana who add a dash of green to the pitch but the repercussion — on and off the field — make it a one-off misadventure. Invariably there is a U-turn. India getting bounced out against the Aussies at Pradhan’s Nagpur pitch was followed by the minefield of a turner at Mumbai. And it is quite clear here that the Motera mayhem by the South African pacers will be followed by India turning the tide at Green Park.

No repeat of 76

Chotelal says that he is sure that there wouldn’t be a repeat of 76 all out in the first innings of the match but he says chances are a similar batting collapse in the third and fourth innings can be expected. “This is first time that a Test match is being played in the summer at Kanpur. So the cracks on the pitch will get bigger quite fast,” he says.

But for a man who knows all about the unpredictability of pitches, Chotelal keeps a window open. “Don’t be surprised if the South African pacers take advantage of the cracks on the pitch. When the ball pitches on them, one can never say where it will go,” he says.

With a mysterious smile, Chotelal has just added another shade of gray to this brown-green debate.