Kotla wicket changes colour; surprise awaits

A pleasant surprise awaits bowlers at the Ferozeshah Kotla — the venue for the last ODI between India and Sri Lanka. The square is awash with green, and the wicket, too, is not the standard brown strip, reports Subhash Rajta.

A pleasant surprise awaits bowlers at the Ferozeshah Kotla — the venue for the last ODI between India and Sri Lanka. The square is awash with green, and the wicket, too, is not the standard brown strip.

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Interestingly, the green tinge is actually much more than the curator would have wanted. “We are now actually struggling to tone down the green to brown. Anyhow, the wicket would be far better than it had been during the Champions League and the India-Australia ODI,” said BCCI’s Pitches and Grounds committee chairman Daljit Singh.

Ironically, while this pitch copped a lot of criticism for being low and slow and not producing big scores, the wickets on which totals in excess of 300 have been scored with ease in the current series have been criticised for making the contest between bat and ball hopelessly lop-sided.

“I don’t understand it. A good ODI wicket is one that allows the team bating second a good chance to chase down the target, so that there’s a keen contest. And we have seen the team batting second chasing down 300 plus target twice and almost knocking down 400-plus in this series. So, it’s quite cynical to criticise these wickets,” said Daljit.

“Besides, the game where South Africa chased down 434 set by Australia is termed a modern classic, and a similar match at Rajkot is ridiculed for killing the contest. Isn’t that double speak?” he asks.

The veteran curator also stressed that it wasn’t just featherbeds that were making batting look easy. “Look at the modern equipment, powerful bats, the fitness regimen of players and PowerPlays.”

All this has pushed the par score up in ODIs. Moreover, the advent of T20 has completely changed the approach of batsmen. They have become far more attacking and are bringing new strokes to the game.”

But isn’t there any way to offer bowlers more assistance from the turf in the ODIs? “One need to allow the wicket to seam or spin, but in that scenario the toss will become crucial and one team would benefit more than the other. The best way is to have a wicket with good bounce and little seam or spin.”