Decoding the Kotla farce

Was it irony or what ? MS Dhoni receiving the ICC Test Championship Mace from Haroon Lorgat on a day when the BCCI and DDCA combined to produce one of the most farcical days of 2009 (and I am strictly talking cricket here). Yes, you have a wicket where some balls take off from a length, others hit you on the shin, and most importantly, as someone told me yesterday, “Sri Lanka were 83/5. The game should have continued.” What he didn’t tell me was, had the game continued and India’s players gotten injured, quite seriously – he’d not be saying the very things he said. So yeah. Let us for a moment condemn this farce, introspect and come up with suggestions, which you and I know the BCCI will never take seriously, but yet, for the love of the exercise, why not.

A country that keeps harping about being World no.1  will never ensure such days, never. Why is that ? Because whenever Australia have been at the top, their curators, pitchwallas and every concerned are so thorough bred and well prepared that they needn’t even see such days. And why is that again ? Because, in Australia an international wicket is prepared 2 years in advance, tested in the extremely competitive Grade cricket there, tried in the Shield matches (Domestic Cricket) before they add the final touches to qualify it as “OK” for international matches. And plus, they have this super Drop-In pitches facility, which means a pitch from the Junction Oval, St. Kilda may just be airlifted and dropped into the MCG for let’s say a Boxing Day Test. Ditto in South Africa and England’s case. But in this great country where we’re happy massaging ourselves by chestbeating and cheerleading our cricket team and not caring about our cricket, our groundsmen make pitches in the nth hour, and as we heard and read about it yesterday, failed to test it, trial it by playing domestic matches for starters, I am sure even this farce won’t ring in the changes.