Ricky Ponting might have blundered, but this man certainly gets it right. When he hands over the pitch to the players, Les Burdett knows exactly how it will play. At 27, he was the youngest curator to manage a Test-match wicket. Now at 57, he is regarded as the world’s best.Burdett’s first love is Test cricket, and he derives extreme pleasure from the fact that the world’s finest will be in action on a stage set up by him. So Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid will play, for all practical purposes, their last Test on the Australian soil at Adelaide that he calls an “honest cricket wicket.”“It’s so humbling for me that world’s greatest players will show themselves on a wicket of my liking. I have always prepared wickets where there can be good cricket. This Adelaide wicket is the best I have seen in my whole lifetime. Glenn McGrath took a look at the wicket this morning, and he called it a belter. I have watered it a bit this evening. There is a bit of grass and will pack it a bit tight with the roller. It’s flat and even throughout, so the batsman can have a go, the bowlers can have go, and the wicket here always assists turn from the third day. So there’s everything in it for everyone. “The Adelaide wicket has always produced a result in Tests since 1991. Last time India played here, they won. Personally, I don’t like many runs to be scored; I would like to see scores of 350 on an average, but I never want the wicket to be the cause for any dismissal,” he said.But Burdett admitted that he is very fond of Tendulkar, and wants the maestro to score a hundred here, just as he had the privilege of watching Brian Lara score a big ton in his last Test in Australia here. “That would be great, if Sachin gets a hundred. He’s a fantastic batsman, I enjoy watching him bat. It would be a great fulfillment for me to have seen Lara and Sachin both waving Australia goodbye with a big century. Lara needed 118 to get past the world record, and he scored a big one here. Now, I hope Sachin does that as well,” he said.With 30 years of experience, and handling 15 hectres of turf which includes five cricket pitch squares and ovals, two bowling lawns, 65 practice cricket pitches and six tennis grass courts, Burdett has seen it all.He believes curators has a responsibility towards cricket world wide. “Sometimes my juniors ask me what drives me on for so long in this profession. I would say the fear of failure, of not being able to hand out a good sporting wicket. I conducted many workshops with Kapil Dev in India and all curators in India told me one thing. What would you do when there are instructions to prepare a wicket to your team’s liking? I have never prepared wickets for Australia or South Australia, and that’s what everybody should do. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, it’s the best team that eventually wins, so why not prepare a good wicket where the quality of cricket is supreme,” he asks.Burdett will come to India again in March to conduct seminars. He remembers Bishan Bedi’s mesmerising spell in 1977-78 here to India’s maddening 1987 defeat in a World Cup match in Kolkata, where he had prepared the wicket, and the last victory here. “Cricket in India is a religion, and I love that fascination people have for the game. I remember how people got emotional when India lost to England in that 1987 semi-final.”There are thundershowers expected on the first day of the Test, but generally sunny conditions for rest of the match with temperatures in the mid-thirties. Burdett is sure that this Test will be a cracker of a match and a befitting finale for this series.
