The Wicked Wicket Story!

There has been a lot of ado about the pitches at the ongoing Champions Trophy, especially in the early part of the competition. Graeme Smith strongly criticized the slow and low ‘turner’ of the Brabourne wicket and called it a brute. There were murmurs of the finals getting shifted to some other venue (from its original Brabourne Stadium), which luckily did not happen. Atkinson, the pitch expert, from England was summoned, and glues and PVA soon became household names! Thankfully, all that seems to be behind us and cricket, and not the pitches have become more of the center of attraction lately.

The talk of these pitches brings me to one Test match in the season on 2004-2005, when the World Champions Australia took on India in a Test Match, at Wankhede(which incidentally is at a stone’s throw from Brabourne), and the match got over in 2 and a half days flat, the Aussies were not able to chase a meager 100 odd total on a third day pitch, and the Indian spinners wreaked havoc. Ponting could not stop criticizing the pitch, and in fact went upto the extent of making an official complaint to the ICC about the same. Why? Couldn’t his batsmen show a decent enough technique to score a meager 100 odd runs on a third day pitch which helped spinners? And if that pitch was termed as a Bad Wicket, why was the original WACA, Perth wicket (now it has slowed down considerably), not black listed as an International Test Venue, when the Aussies and the West Indians played out another 2.5 day Test Match

Aus-WI match at WACA

For that matter, what about the Kingsmead wicket in South Africa, where the visiting teams like the Indians have lost out in under 3 days again, on another Fast Bowling Devil, where our own bowlers Srinath and Prasad were next to unplayable, and Donald’s deliveries made one think whether one’s watching Cricket or an American bombardment on Iraq!

India-SA match at Kingsmead

NZ always dish out a green, seaming Wellington to the visitors, and invariably, the teams not too adept at dealing with such pitches succumb badly. NZ went one step ahead in India’s last tour to Kiwis, the Wellington match got over in less than 200 overs, and it got worse when the Hamilton wicket lasted less than 180 overs - that’s like two days of cricket!!!

India-NZ match at Wellington


There are so many other wickets which have shown their bias towards fast bowling and have never come under the scanner. So why should a spinning wicket? Shouldn’t the yardstick while judging the pitches be the same for all countries? Why is a wicket that turns from the second day onwards, a wicket that does not make for interesting viewing, whereas, a wicket that seams around so much from the first morning(that a Team winning the Toss wins the match!), not meted out with the same kind of treatment? Indians are often criticized of showing no Technique on such wickets, I agree, we do not handle really quick bowling too well. But then, why do we not condemn the Aussie Team for surrendering meekly to the guile of the Indian spinners, like they did at Wankhede? Isn’t playing spin bowling an art by itself?

It is one thing to improve the quality of our Domestic Cricket Wickets, to make it a more balanced battle between the bat and the ball, unlike earlier, when we either had not more than 2 completed innings in the match, or the encounter would end in 2 odd days flat. But it is totally irrational to play into the hands of the opponents by preparing pitches that suit them more than us, and till the time, there are the Perths, the Kingsmeads and the Wellingtons of the world, we have the right to play to our strengths and have our own Wankhedes and the Brabournes.