Dry track at Bangalore could crack batsmen

The side batting second is likely to be damned, unless the side batting first kills its chances through profligate strokes, reports Pradeep Magazine.

On the eve of a major Test series, with the eyes of the cricketing world focused on it, one would have liked to write about the subtle intricacies of a five-day game that enthrall a sports fan.

One would have wanted to go back and forth in time to try and find out the reasons that make an India-Australia face-off a significant milestone in the cricketing calendar of the world.

One would have liked to dwell upon a number of factors that have, in the recent past, produced intense, quality cricket whenever the two teams have met each other. And one would have liked to write about how Sourav Ganguly and his team, by its gutsy, courageous play against the Australians, has forced the Indian public to take renewed interest in the longer version of the game.

One would have liked to write about many more such things but the mind's eye is somewhere else. The images of a brownish square that resembles a wizened old face full of deep creases is still flashing in the mind.

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