Board focus now on pitch

BCCI president Sharad Pawar is learnt to have taken a keen interest in the brainstorming session of the country’s leading curators and ground experts. In fact, this is the first time that the Pawar-led BCCI administration has undertaken a full-fledged summit of the pitch committee members. The last time all the five zonal heads got together and met the BCCI top brass was way back in 2002-03, when the then Board chief Jagmohan Dalmiya convened the pitch committee’s summit in Kolkata.

North Zone pitch and grounds committee representative Daljit Singh and West Zone chief Dheeraj Parsana will lead the charge, while representing the East Zone will be veteran Probir Mukherjee.

Sources say the Board will instruct all the state associations to send across two “representatives” to the summit, who will then be trained for the role of pitch and ground experts.

The Board, meanwhile, has instructed the Kolkata curator to prepare not just the nets wickets at the Eden Gardens, but also the main tracks. “These days, when teams go through camps, simulation matches are played as drills. It’s a new trend. The Indian team will be here for five days. So, we are going to keep the main wickets ready, in case they want to play short matches,” curator Mukherjee told this daily.

The Indian team will train at Eden from May 2 to 6. The last time the Indian squad camped in Kolkata was back in 2004 before the historic Pakistan tour.