Opinion Pitch imperfect

Here’s an example from recent history. In the spring of 2002,the sun index was high,and in the corner of the ground,three Rastafarians — in knitted caps and loose slacks — had turned up their stereo,ensuring Bob Marley lived on in Kingston town 21 years after his death. It was the afternoon before the fifth and final Test between India and West Indies,and in the centre,the mood in the Indian think-tank was in stark contrast to those dreadlocked locals,as the outfield mingled almost homogeneously with the pitch for the deciding match of the 1-1 series.

For Indian cricket,the colour green is usually associated with fear and insecurity,with confidence being shattered,with imminent defeat. Captains start praying for the coin to fall their way the following morning,for the chance to bowl first and save their batsmen from the ignominy of a paltry double-digit total. On that occasion,Sourav Ganguly got his wish,and his counterpart Carl Hooper smirked as he indicated to his dressing room that they would bat first. First wicket,111; second wicket,246; end of match,West Indies won by 155 runs. The wicket had turned out to be a batting beauty,and India had panicked because of the grass cover.

In a country so deeply obsessed with pitches,it is surprising how little resources and expertise India invests on tracks made here. The national board’s various state associations have dished out a series of pitches over the years that have ranged from downright boring to utterly decrepit — either ensuring runs by the kilo or wickets by the litre. And then,every once in a while,as if for good measure,they throw up a track on which cricket ceases to be a sport,and batting becomes a game of survival in the rawest sense of the word. Replace Sudeep Tyagi with Allan Donald at the Ferozeshah Kotla last Sunday,for example,and the result could have been disastrous.

What happened during the last India vs Sri Lanka one-dayer was a one-off,sure,but there was also a strange pattern behind it. That’s why not everyone in the know was surprised to see the ball dart off a length,and behave like it was a missile programmed to cause injury. The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) had this coming after the amateurish way in which it had handled the central square over the last five years — digging and relaying on a whim.

Only two one-day internationals have been abandoned due to a sub-standard pitch,and they’ve both been in India. Only one country in recent years has been officially censured for making turning tracks that are against the spirit of the game — after Mumbai,2004 and Kanpur,2008. And only one cricket board is accused repeatedly of turning out wickets that are killing the game because of their lopsided,batsmen-friendly nature.

It’s not because India doesn’t have the money to ensure proper expertise; and it’s definitely not because it doesn’t care enough. On the contrary,after mulling over this problem for the last couple of days,my view is that reasons for this constant bungling are: one,there is too much money to burn; and two,there is so much fear of what the wicket will throw up,and how it will affect the home team’s chances,that the groundsmen overcompensate one way or the other. As a result,in an attempt to play safe,they turn out pitches either too benign or downright unplayable.

The people who work on the pitches are,in fact,the ones who should be blamed last. It’s a problem that comes from the top and makes its way down the hierarchy (like the layers on a pitch: clay,sand,gravel,brick). Eventually the groundsman — the smallest man in the chain of command,who is sometimes an electrician,sometimes a fireman — is left with too many instructions and too little scientific expertise to make anything out of them.

In most other countries,being a pitch curator is a career option. You decide early,study the science behind the art,and spend time as an assistant before the ground is finally handed over to you. The job ensures enough money for a home and a car,and the responsibility that what you are producing is yours alone — no instructions from the board’s head honchos,no suggestions from the team’s captain,and no unreasonable last-minute requests from a spinner or an opening batsman that can’t be turned down.

There have indeed been occasions when Indian groundsmen have turned out a perfectly suitable wicket,but their consistency level is so low that it seems more by accident than by design. Going forward,the steps that Indian cricket has to take are simple enough — educate and train groundsmen,hire foreign experts,research various soils and find out which is suitable for pitch-making in various climatic conditions,stop interfering once a suitable curator has been appointed,and ensure accountability by punishing venues that don’t make the cut.

But,apart from these must-dos that the BCCI should have woken up to years ago,the need of the hour is also a change in mindset as far as pitches are concerned. If matches were won and lost only depending on where they were being played,cricket would be no more than a simulation. Since the nature of wickets in most countries remains constant over a fairly long period of time,Indian cricket’s fear of the known is as inexplicable as the reluctance to set its house in order.

kunal.pradhan@expressindia.com