Rlys complain of grass on the track

All it took was just a second to change the cheerful mood of the Railways coach Vinod Sharma. The reason for his being miffed was ‘presence of too much grass’ on the Nehru Stadium pitch being readied for the three-day match against West Indies.

He hurriedly summoned Railways’ local liason officer Sanjay Kondhalkar and asked: ‘‘Is this what we are going to get?’’ Despite assurances from Kondhalkar that ‘‘grass will be cut on the morrow’’, Sharma walked away nodding his head in disapproval. Talking to The Indian Express soon after, Sharma wondered: ‘‘Hum kya bewakoof hain wahan se aane ke liye (Are we fools to come all the way from Delhi)?’’ ‘‘Will the Indian team play on such a grassy wicket. You have Test wickets that spin, then why should there be such pitches for our matches. And as the home team should we not be having the home advantage,’’ he asked. ‘‘Windies have good fast bowlers so it would be a real test for my batsmen,’’ Sharma added. He also ‘promised’ to make an issue of it should the grass not be mowed by Wednesday.

But it is highly unlikely that his request would be acceded to, for the BCCI’s pitches and grounds committee member Dhiraj Parsana who also inspected the pitch during the day, patted the ground staff for the wicket. Already under fire for the poor nature of the Test match wickets, Parsana disagreed with Sharma on the amount of grass on the pitch and affirmed that ‘grass will remain’. ‘‘There is right amount of grass on the pitch and the ball will go through at decent pace. This is the sort of wicket that is needed,’’ Parsana opined. ‘‘They are thinking only in terms of Murali Kartik (left-arm spinner) taking a few wickets. This is not the time to take a narrow view of things.’’