Rant 91: Pitching camp

Too often we hear the phrase “…hit the panic button…” as a reference to a cricket team suffering a major collapse of wickets after a prominent batsman’s exit. It’s an easy way for outsiders to sum up a failed innings with the bat.

Seldom would you hear it in the build-up to a Test.

However, India seem to have taken a comically large hammer to that panic button ever since messers Cook and Compton sauntered through the formalities of scoring 57 to win the second Test in Mumbai. The bewildered Wankhede public wondered how they would fill time on the fifth day that would never be. Analyse Monty Panesary’s one-dimensional but effective spin? Graeme Swann’s variations? The fact that Sachin Tendulkar seems a mere shadow of his old self? Well they may have done so in their own heads whilst enjoying a nice walk down Juhu beach.

The BCCI, however, chose to focus on the issue of pitches. The euphoria of the Ahmedabad victory being a spin-led affair made choosing a rank turner at the Wankhede a no-brainer. MS Dhoni even “asked” for it, thinking it would lead to an even quicker victory than the one at Motera. How viciously that backfired.

In the build-up to the third Test at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the board have been in a tizzy, causing a saga that has all the hallmarks of Bollywood drama.

A BCCI representative was sent over to “assist” in pitch preparations, alongside groundsman-in-chief Prabir Mukherjee, a grizzled, 83-year-old veteran, who last year had a verbal spat with Dhoni. The Indian captain criticised the Eden pitch, despite a 95-run ODI win over England, as an “ugly wicket” to which Mukherjee responded, “pitches don’t score runs, batsmen do”.

Dhoni’s fresh calls for a turning surface caused more consternation with Mukherjee, who bemoaned: “This is immoral because you (organisers) are selling tickets for a five-day Test. On a square turner, there's every chance of a match ending in three days. Why rob people of two days' play?” The groundsman then refused to come to work, reportedly for health reasons, but has since been persuaded by the board to continue supervising preparations.

Utpal Dutt, moustachioed like the pitch
curator he should have been!

I can well imagine Shahrukh Khan playing the role of MS Dhoni, trying to keep his charisma going whilst an enraged Amrish Puri (aka any BCCI chief honcho) tries to seek revenge by sending his right-hand-man Teja to manipulate things at the ground level. All along, curator Utpal Dutt has been gagged and bound to a chair, but who anyway refuses to work with that “upstart” Teja.

Within all this, the real reason for India’s capitulation was never sought by the board. Was the furore over pitches deliberately caused to avoid talking about India’s faults with bat and ball? Could well be, considering the secrecy around match pitches and conditions of the practice pitches. Or is it a case of looking short term, i.e. win the series here to gain revenge for last year’s drubbing?

Whichever way you look at it, the BCCI seem to have their heads in the sand. As if the mere presence of turning wickets would have been enough to secure a series win. It is, unfortunately, the same argument we have for including failing players, who may have been stalwarts in their time. I will not include names for betraying the fan part of my sporting soul.

But is it too much to ask our players to try and take the pitch out of the equation? To repeat from last year, teams that are truly great learn to adapt in foreign climes. We failed spectacularly in this respect last year, while England have learnt admirably from their mistakes.

If this were war, the full-blown clamour for favourable pitches (and nothing else) would take us back to the trenches of World War One. Dig one and you can be relatively protected from the enemy’s bullets, maybe even win a skirmish or two. However, as we saw in Mumbai, the enemy has advanced its technique. It has taken stock of the type of soil that lies beyond the trench and clambered out – it took risks and won rewards. In the next five days, it will take stronger steps towards our trench.

We seem to have stopped questioning our own ammunition and unfortunately, once the bayonets are mere inches from the heart, the ground below will matter so little.