Teams look past Kanpur pitch

He was first joined by the team’s manager,coach and support staff,and then by his trump card Muttiah Muralitharan,who raised an eyebrow at the wicket’s greenish tinge before talking — while the others listened — for a full 10 minutes in rapid,animated Sinhalese.

The Indians,busy at the nets near the fine-leg fence,had already made their customary visit to the centre by then,and the think-tanks of both units seemed largely unsure about what to expect from the surface over the course of the next five days,in the second Test starting on Tuesday.

“The conditions are taken into account,but at the end of the day,you have the team combination charted out for the full match,” Dhoni said later,trying to dispel a barrage of questions on the pitch by stressing that it wouldn’t be the only factor in the match.

“You want to decide whether you want to go hard for the first one hour or not take the risk of being at the receiving end in the fourth innings,when the ball is spinning and bouncing and you have the pressure of chasing a target,” he said.

Options open
Like the Lankans,Dhoni has decided to keep his options open on a wicket that has a fair bit of grass but looks dry and ready to break once the ball and the batsmen’s feet pound on it for the first three days.

Sticking with their new policy,India released Tamil Nadu batsman S Badrinath for Ranji duty,but this time retained left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha,keeping him in the mix at least until the toss. With the Indian slow bowlers struggling in the first Test in Ahmedabad,a bit of extra cover is perhaps advisable,and sources in the team say that if Ojha misses the opportunity to make his Test debut in place of leg-spinner Amit Mishra,it won’t be by much.

Another bowler making a strong case is Sreesanth,the motor-mouthed fast bowler from Kerala whose on-field antics are loved one day and hated another.

Sreesanth looked sharp in practice on Monday,and with Ishant Sharma looking only marginally better in Motera than he has looked right through the one-day season,the Indian team management will have to think hard before choosing between them.

Fernando,Mendis likely
Sri Lanka,on the other hand,are without the services of paceman Dammika Prasad,who has a Grade-I tear in his hamstring. He may be replaced by the reliable Nuwan Kulasekara or the mercurial Dilhara Fernando,who was SOSed by the team management at the eleventh hour.

“The way our cricket is structured,it is very easy for Dilhara to fit into the team. Back home,our players are in touch 3-4 days a week,so there are never any adjustment problems,” Sangakkara said about Fernando’s lack of preparation time. “He’s finding his rhythm in the nets,he’s fast and accurate,and if he can play tomorrow,it will be good for us.”

But spin was clearly Sri Lanka’s big worry on a flat wicket in the first Test,and the chances of Ajantha Mendis’s inclusion are bright as ever — “either as a third spinner”,as Sangakkara said while gloating on his team’s abundance of options,or in place of left-arm spinner Rangana Herath,whose recent golden run ended slowly and painfully in Ahmedabad.

Mendis has an astonishing record against India — 26 wickets in his first three Tests — but slowed down somewhat after a breakthrough first season,though his overall tally of 42 scalps from nine matches is still enviable.

Finally,with deliberation and intrigue the order of the day,it was left to Dhoni to add a customary philosophical highlight.

His highly successful captaincy career had started in Kanpur in a three-day Test against South Africa last year,and it was an allusion he was waiting for in the pre-match press conference. “The journey has been good so far,and you just hope that it gets better and better,” he said. “But international cricket is not about that. It’s about the tough moments you go through.”