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Journalism of Courage
IF there was a handbook published exclusively for Indian curators,it would probably start with Five Commandments: On the first morning,in the first session,the pitch shall assist fast bowlers
It shall be hard and even and great for batting on the second day
On the third evening,it will start breaking
There will be turn and bounce from the fourth
And on the fifth day,India shall win the match,my job shall be safe,and all shall be well with the world.
It doesnt matter what a pitch looks like on the eve of a matchit could be brown and dusty or hard and greenbut what a curator says about the playing surface invariably remains the same it will be a sporting wicket,or variations of that.
At the Ferozeshah Kotla in Delhi last weekend,the curator had promised a 250-run pitch. I am expecting a competitive game here, Daljit Singh,the man responsible for the pitch,said two days before the match. For those who dont know how that went,Sri Lanka reached 83 for five in 23.3 overs before the match had to be abandoned.
The Kotla fiasco was only the second time in the history of the one-day game that a match had to be abandoned due to a poor pitchthe only other time was also in India,in Indore back in 1997,where the game lasted all of three overs.
Its a weird combination: India is obsessed with pitchesnowhere else in the world does the curator get as much footage as the captains ahead of a matchand yet,India produces poor pitches more often than any other cricket-playing nation.
Some experts feel Indias fixation with good,sporting pitches is because of its history of poor tracksfew tracks have been as under-prepared as Mumbai in 2005 or Kanpur two years ago. Others feel that being in constant spotlight puts tremendous pressure on the ground staff.
India remains one of the few cricketing countries where curators still work part-time. Delhis Vijay Bahadur Mishra,sacked after the Kotla debacle,has a job in a bank. Shiv Kumar,who tends to the Green Park in Kanpur,is employed with Uttar Pradeshs electricity board. In many centres,pitch preparations are overseen by former cricketersone example being Sudhir Naik in Mumbai.
But that isnt the only problem.
WHOS IN CHARGE?
How many people does it take to make a pitch? In India,the answer could vary from five to 50. Each centre has a local curatorthe man in charge when theres no international cricket on. More often than not,theres the chief of the local associations pitch and grounds committee. In the run-up to a big game,a BCCI-appointed man comes in to make sure all is fine. And then theres the maali gardener.
In England,South Africa and Australia,every ground has professional curators. There can be no pointing of fingers if things go wrong. It is a science which needs to be looked after by a scientist,not an artist, says Ajay Shirke,president of the Maharashtra Cricket Association.
After last weeks fiasco at the Kotla,the men at the centre of the controversy are Delhi District Cricket Association DDCA curator Vijay Bahadur Mishra,BCCIs Daljit Singh and former India opener Chetan Chauhan,who headed the Pitch and Grounds Committee in Delhi. Chauhan said Daljit was to blame. Daljit said everyone,including himself,was at fault. Mishra said the Sri Lankans chickened out. Chauhan and Mishra resigned,while Daljits committee was disbanded by the BCCI.
There is definitely pressure from a number of sources when it comes to preparing wickets here, says Narayan Raju,curator at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore. But as a curator you need to trust your knowledge.
The board,having done away with their Pitches amp; Grounds Committee,has now said that all responsibility shall lie with the local associations. So thats one less cook in the equation,but does it solve the problem?
LIVING IN THE PAST
Sudhir Naik,the Mumbai Cricket Associations head curator,says its important that the man at the bottom of the chain knows what hes doing and has the freedom to do his job. Wankhede has been lucky that they have good maalis. You just ask for the wicket you want and they will give it. Maalis wont know modern techniques but they still can prepare pitches as per the requirements, says Naik.
And yet,Mumbais Wankhede grounds famously laid out that minefield disguised as a pitch,which only the spinners who picked 29 of the 40 wickets remember fondly.
Prakash Avadhar,curator at the Cricket Club of India feels the maali cant be the be-all and the end-all. You cant leave everything to the maali,they will do what you ask,but someone needs to check whether they are on the right track.
Shivlal Yadav,the Hyderabad Cricket Association chief,says,We were looking for a curator and we wanted someone with at least a decent knowledge of horticulture. Chandu YL Chandrasekar fit that role perfectly. He had just retired after being part of various projects regarding different soils and grass at a soil research centre in Hyderabad. With his sound background,he was the best man for the job.
SAFETY FIRST
But forget,for the moment,the really poor ones: the venom-spewing turners or the finger-crushing fire-breathers. A glance at recent Test statistics shows an intriguing number of no-results in Indiaan indication of how batsman-friendly the pitches here have been of late.
In Australia,over the past five years,three out of 28 matches have ended in draws; in South Africa three out of 29; in Bangladesh its three out of 14 and in Sri Lanka four out of 22. Even in New Zealand,where almost all Test matches in the first half of their summer are affected by poor weather,only eight out of 23 Tests have ended without a result. In comparison,India has seen 11 draws in 24 Test matches.
There was a time,in the 90s,when Indian captains used to regularly ask the groundsmen to put out turners,but even though those days are mostly pastcaptains only get upset now if the track suits the opposition rather than themselvescurators prefer to play it safe.
Extraordinarily dull drawsas in Ahmedabad against Sri Lanka in November last year India 426 and 412 for 4; Sri Lanka 760 for 7 declared or in Kanpur against South Africa in 2004 South Africa 510 for 9 declared and 169/4; India 466 all outdo stick in memory,but more often than not,high-scoring stalemates fade from memory.
However,if India lose a game in three days,the spotlight on the track is that much harsher.
WHATS REQUIRED
Growing up,when you play galli cricket,you cannot be dismissed by a sarpatti ball or grubbersdeliveries that roll along the ground after pitching Sachin Tendulkars habit of crouching each time hes clean bowled could well be attributed to time spent on poor tracks early in life,where such a reaction could be followed up with an argument on whether that qualified as sarpatti or not.
The hazards of playing on bad pitches are ingrained in the Indian psyche early in life,but the science behind preparing good pitches remain simplistic.
It needs eight days of hard work and proper planning to prepare a good pitch, says one-Test veteran Dhiraj Parsanna. One needs to give reasonable amount of water and proper rolling,but at the same time see to it that there is enough grass. Grass provides grip on the wicket. More grass sees seamer-friendly pitches,less grass means a flat track. Parsanna was in charge of the Ahmedabad pitch that saw 1,598 runs being scored over five increasingly traumatic days.
India need to take big steps into the present,feels Vinod Ratnakar,chief curator of the Maharashtra Cricket Association,who did his MS in Plant Entomology Study of Plant Diseases and has been a curator for 12 years now. Even in England,till recently,local groundsmen used to make pitches. But they realised that preparing pitches was a science that involves understanding horticulture and soil chemistry and started involving people with this knowledge, he told The Sunday Express. On my recent visit to Lords,I met guys like Dr Steven Baker who is in charge of pitches in England,and also visited the Turf Institute in Yorkshire,where they ensure that every pitch they prepare is perfect and plays true without an element of error.
Over the last couple of years,the International Cricket Council has been taking the quality of tracks being used in international cricket more seriously. Already,the Indian board is demanding more accountability. The Kotla one-dayer,the one-fourth of it rather,has put things in motion. Maybe things will change nowstarting,hopefully,with a new handbook.
With inputs from Bharat Sundaresan and Devendra Pandey
Sticky Wickets
Five poor pitches that will not be forgotten in a hurry
Brabourne Stadium,Mumbai 2006: West Indies-Australia Champions Trophy final
Early in the tournament,West Indies,one of the finalists,were bowled out for 80 runs against Sri Lanka,while New Zealand were dismissed for 108 against South Africa. Pitch doctor Andy Atkinson,the ICC grounds consultant,was flown in to oversee spraying of five litres of glue mixed with 10 litres of water over the pitch prior to the decider. Polyvinyl Acetate adhesive was used on the wicket to glue the pitch together and prevent it from further deterioration.
VCA,Nagpur 2004: India vs Australia,3rd Test
Australia had come into the third Test 1-0 up and were on the verge of winning their first Test series on Indian soil in 35 years. According to the Wisden Almanack report,It looked like an old-fashioned English green seamer. As Australia prepared to cross what had become known as the final frontier,even the return of Tendulkar was overshadowed by the preparation of the VCA pitch. Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly tried hard to get the curator to shave off the grass a week before the game. India were bowled out for 185 and 200. India lost the match by 342 runs and Australia had galloped over the final frontier with a Test match to spare.
Wankhede Stadium,Mumbai 2004: India vs Australia,4th Test
Forty wickets in two days is almost unheard of. Its been a fantastic series but this has left a sour taste, said skipper Ricky Ponting. The Mumbai minefield provided rich dividends to the wickets column of any spinner willing to roll his arm over. Four innings were wrapped up in a total of 199.
Motera Stadium,Ahmedabad 2009: India vs Sri Lanka,1st Test
1,598 runs were scored for 21 wickets over five days on probably the flattest track produced in recent times. The highest wicket-taker in the world,Muttiah Muralitharan contemplated early retirement while six centuries and one double century were scored by the batsmen from both sides. Mahela Jayawardene became the seventh batsman in history to score six double centuries with his 275. Sri Lankas first innings total of 760/7 dec. was the highest team score on Indian soil.
Nehru Stadium,Indore 1997: India vs Sri Lanka 2nd ODI
On Christmas in 97,cricket fans in Indore returned home empty-handed. For the first time in ODIs 26-year-old history,a one-day international match was abandoned due to an unplayable pitch. Three overs into the match,captains Sachin Tendulkar and Arjuna Ranatunga called off the match,deciding that the wicket was dangerous. India had come into the Indore ODI leading the series 1-0,and ended by sharing the honours after Sri Lanka equalised in the third ODI in Goa. The abandoned fifth ODI between the same teams at Delhi is the only other instance of a match being abandoned due to a dangerous pitch.
