Pitch panel chief washes hands of Wankhede dirt

After recent heavy criticism of their pitches, the BCCI’s pointsman has responded. ‘‘The pitches committee had nothing to do ...

After recent heavy criticism of their pitches, the BCCI’s pointsman has responded. ‘‘The pitches committee had nothing to do with the preparation of tracks in the last series’’, says pitches committee chairman Venkat Sundaram.

Washing his hands of the dirt kicked up by the rogue tracks at Nagpur and Mumbai, Venkat says: ‘‘We had left it to the local curators to prepare the tracks.’’

Even in a series where the planning and preparations were far from flawless, surely this is a bit too much freedom? Venkat — in town yesterday with the other members of his committee to inspect the Green Park pitch ahead of the First Test against South Africa — refused to explain. ‘‘That’s all I can say now, I will give my report to the Board at a later date.’’

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North Zone representative Anand Shukla sought to throw light on the isse but he only managed to make it more confused. Sitting next to the Green Park track, he revealed how he reached Nagpur the day before the match. ‘‘My earlier trip to Nagpur was a month before the match’’, he says.

Ask him the reason for staying away and he goes silent. Then adds, darkly, that ‘‘there a few things happening off the field’’. He doesn’t go beyond that but it is easy to understand that it has something to do with the BCCI elections and other ambiguities connected to the Indian board.

Venkat Sundaram is not keen to talk about the series beyond that. ‘‘Talk about the Green Park track, that’s all’’, he says. That means no answers to the mystery of the pitches during the Aussie series. The only one to surface is this: Since there was no central body to overlook the pitches there were different surfaces at every centre.