Pitch report: Muddy, two-faced, treacherous

• The Siliguri wicket on which we played last season was the worst I have ever seen. There was a serious risk of players getting injured
— Railways coach Vinod Sharma

When fast bowlers topped the bowling statistics at the end of last season, the BCCI was patting itself on the back by claiming that fast and fair wickets had finally arrived in India. The self-congratulations, it appears, were premature, as these comments and the resignation of G Kasturirangan as head of the Board’s Pitches Committee indicate.

With the Board moving at a snail’s pace on its Green Revolution — five years after its formation the pitches committee is still concentrating on just the international centres — the ‘fair and fast’ motto is a distant dream for the smaller centres where most domestic cricket is played.

Pitch reports from Express reporters across virtually every zone make it clear that ‘bad wickets’ fall in two categories: Those tampered with by the local administrators and the one which were relaid but have not yet settled. Orissa skipper Parida talks about the game against Baroda on the relaid wicket. ‘‘The bounce was uneven and because of that Baroda bowlers Irfan Pathan and Rakesh Patel got a bagful of wickets,’’ he says.

Former international pacer Venkatesh Prasad has been a regular in the Second Division Plate group and played all over the country last season. ‘‘There’s been no real change, especially in the smaller centres. The wickets are as dead as usual,’’ he says.

Former international Nikhil Chopra, who represented UP last season, was scathing in his criticism of the Guwahati pitch. ‘‘It was mud everywhere. Normal cricket was not possible and it was over in just three days.’’

Even where Kasturi and Co had the wicket relaid or instructed the groundsmen to prepare an ideal wicket, things have changed just a few days or even hours before the match as local administrators using ‘home advantage’ to unsettle the level playing field.

As the experts of the New Zealand Sports Turf Institute (NZSTI) pointed out, ‘‘Even if the pitch is relaid after digging, the top surface is very vital. All the efforts go to waste if the top layer is tampered with.’’ And, as it happened at Indore, watering and a heavy roller can change the character of the pitch overnight.

The BCCI does have a machinery to stop local interference but it hasn’t worked that way. There is a match referee for every first-class game and an adverse pitch report can see the local association fined Rs 25,000.

It isn’t all bad news on the domestic front: some associations have followed the recommendations of the pitches committee and the NZSTI following their joint inspection. Rajkot’s dead track, a graveyard for pacers, is one. Veteran Kerala spinner Ananthpadmanabhan, who played there during a Ranji Trophy plate match, said: ‘‘The wicket was true, rather it was 70-30 in the batsmen’s favour. There was grass on the wicket and it helped seamers and medium pacers.’’

That is, however, merely the silver lining to the cloud that is threatening to rain on Indian cricket’s fast-bowling parade.

(With inputs from S Santhanam, Vijay Tagore, Kannan V & Chandresh Narayanan)