BOMBAY, 30 October 2004 — The International Cricket Council has spread its umbrella of control over all aspects of the game, be it the playing conditions, the players’ code of conduct, or the measure of exposure that can be given to sponsors or logo-providers. The apex body, however, has left one important area, that of the standard of pitches, outside its purview. It is left to each match staging center of a host country to decide what kind of a pitch ought to be provided for a match to be played under its aegis.
A visiting team cannot complain if a pitch is made with the orientation of either pace or spin in mind. That prerogative is that of the host country. It is rare, therefore, to witness a clash of interests between the home captain and the ground authorities in the manner of the preparation of a pitch. There was a virtual verbal duel between Indian captain Saurav Ganguly and the curator of the Vidarbha Cricket Association ground, Kishor Pradhan over the preparation of the pitch for the third Test against Australia.
Ganguly made a wry face when he had a look at the Test match strip a couple of days before the start of the match. He immediately contacted the VCA officials and made it known to them he would appreciate it if the green top was turned into a brownish, barren surface to help his spinners. His request was not heeded to and what was ultimately provided for the third Test was a green top, with a thick layers of grass on it. It was a kind of pitch that had never been seen for any international match in India.
Ganguly could not restrain himself and in his Test-eve interview to the media, he openly criticized the curator. It is also understood that he did not want to play in the match and trotted out a hamstring injury as an excuse. While the home captain is within his rights to demand the kind of wicket that his side wants, he cannot directly order the groundsman what he should or should not do. There has been no reaction so far from the top officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India on the open clash between the Indian captain and the curator of the Test match center at Nagpur. It did, however, cause a lot of unpleasantness in the Indian camp. When the Australian captain Adam Gilchrist welcomed the look of the playing surface and described it as a “typical Australian wicket,” the salt was rubbed further into the wound of the Indian side. There have been quite a few occasions when the quality or the look of a particular Test match wicket has been a subject of a controversy. A couple of years ago, a Test match in the West Indies was canceled when the pitch remained under-prepared on account of the flooding of the ground a few days before the scheduled start of the match. There have also been occasions when the match had to be shifted at the last moment.
But what happened in Bombay during the last Test of the 1974-75 series against the West Indies must indeed constitute as some kind of a joke. It was the occasion of the first ever Test match at the newly-constructed Wankhede Stadium. There were comments in newspapers that because of the load of work on the construction of the stadium, not much attention could be paid to the preparation of the pitch for the Test match.
On the eve of the match, the entire West Indies squad minutely inspected the pitch and drew its own conclusion. The captain Clive Lloyd went so far as to lodge an official complaint with the Bombay Cricket Association, as well as the BCCI. In his letter he said that “the pitch appears totally under prepared and not fit for a Test match in that it could be the cause of serious injuries to batsmen.”
The so-called under-prepared strip in the end turned out to be one the most beautiful batting wickets that the West Indies ever had during the entire series. The great paradox was that the man who had lodged a complaint about the pitch, Clive Lloyd, himself scored his career best 242, as West Indies piled up over 600 runs in the first innings. Lloyd, blessed with rare sense of humor, when confronted by the media, said in jest, “now I will have to make a complaint that I have been favored with a most friendly surface.” That is how it goes in the game of cricket. People who do not have the faintest idea of cricket pitches make all kinds of predictions. Even experts are sometimes made to eat the humble pie. It is because of this mystery element of cricket pitches that the ICC does not want to ever have anything to do with this aspect of the game, even as it lays down standards for all other facilities.
