Indo-Aussie Test series 'pitches' tension

[Desi Cartman]

I am afraid BCCI again is going to mess it up for our team. 3 of the 4 test pitches will have help for the seamers. This is Pathetic , when will BCCI learn that we should play to our strength. .................................................................... CHINNASWAMY STADIUM, BANGALORE 1st Test: Oct 9-13 WORK IN PROGRESS: The centre pitch was last used for the Indian Premier League back in April-May. It is currently undergoing a 'scarifying' process, where a precise machine removes 2mm off the surface, killing off any dead grass, and allows for fresh clay and fertiliser to be laid. "It's what we call topping-up," revealed Narayan Raju, the curator. "The pitch is more or less taken care of and it will have an even covering of grass in the next few days or so," said Raju. "It's the outfield that we want to perfect now. We will use a machine called the Aerator that will dig four inches into the surface, remove any excess water and help with the de-weeding," explained Raju. The aeration process also involves adding fresh soil and fertiliser. PITCH REPORT: Raju expects the pitch to play true. "We will provide a sporting track with good pace and carry," he said. "There will be something for everyone, the spinners included," he added. MOHALI PCA 2nd Test: Oct 17-21 HARD FACTS: Not much change is expected here. "Traditionally, the PCA track has always been hard and it's not possible to change it's nature overnight," says Daljit Singh, the curator, who is also the chairman of the BCCI pitches committee. "However, this doesn't mean that only seamers will exploit the conditions. Due to prolonged monsoon, preparation of the track hasn't been easy. But we have done our best to prepare a sporting wicket that will hold true for the entire five days." PITCH REPORT: "Since the wicket will have bounce, finger spinners won't be able to extract much spin from it. But wrist spinners like Kumble will prove a handful," says Daljit. FEROZESHAH KOTLA, DELHI 3RD TEST: Oct 29-Nov 2 OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLE?: Nine new wickets have been re-laid this season with the promise of good lift to the pacers. But after the first day"s play between the Delhi Ranji team and the Pakistan domestic team in the Mohammad Nissar Trophy on Monday, the wicket looks like the usual "paata" of the past. Keen observers even commented that the smattering of grass may just be in the wrong area of the pitch. "Each of the nine wickets have been relaid with a unique mix of mitti which will provide good bounce to the pacers. This kind of mix has not been used before in India. My aim is to provide an audience-friendly Test. In the T20 era, Test match is dying out, so the last thing I want is a draw," says Radhe Shyam, the curator. PITCH REPORT: "If both the first innings are over within two days :omg::omg::omg: then there is a greater chance of a result. Hopefully we can produce that kind of wicket," says Radhe Shyam. When asked if he had received any directives from Daljit Singh, the pitch and grounds committee chairman Daljit Singh, Shyam retorted, "I have never received any directives from anyone, anytime during my stint as a curator of the Kotla." VCA STADIUM, NAGPUR 4th Test: Nov 6-10 NEW VENUE, NEW TRACK: Unlike the last time (2004), when a green carpet was rolled out, everything's new here, including the Rs 80-crore stadium and the playing surface. Shashank Manohar, the VCA chief who is also the BCCI president-in-waiting, is confident the Indian team will have a lot to cheer here. The imposing ground, situated 10-km away from the city, has a 75-yard boundary which means spinners won't feel shy to flight the ball. In the first practice match held at the stadium, two batsmen got hundreds. Interestingly, the spinners took 20 wickets as compared to just 7 by the pacers. PITCH REPORT: "The wicket is devoid of any grass. The pitch has a decent bounce with a lot of encouragement for the spinners, opines MN Dorairajan, vice president of VCA. "Since this is a brand new wicket, it still needs a lot of rolling and watering." ...................................................

[zubinpepsi]

other than Kotla, the other three venues are not lucky for us..

[Desi Cartman]

other than Kotla' date=' the other three venues are not lucky for us..[/quote'] Once again if the score is 1-0 Aus after the first 2 tests then it will be nearly impossible for India to win ... Bangalore and Mohali shouldnt have any GRASS ,,, why the hell r our curators preparing pitches that are gonna help seam bowling

[ssd123]

As an aussie die hard supporter I hate to admit it but the reason india was very competitive in australia last series on the bowling side of things was due to your tall fast bowlers and the spinners had very little impact with harbajhan even getting overlooked for one test. I think if you prepare slow turning wickets for the upcoming series your fast bowlers aren't going to be able to do anything with the pitch and if our batsmen can negotiate your spinners we will be in for some boring drawn test matches.

[Fontaine]

This is awesome! Great for test match cricket to have competitive balanced pitches and I'm really excited for our fast bowlers like Ishant/Zaheer/Patel!! I have no concerns regarding our fast bowling attack on these conditions.

[Dinx - the Jinx]

As an aussie die hard supporter I hate to admit it but the reason india was very competitive in australia last series on the bowling side of things was due to your tall fast bowlers and the spinners had very little impact with harbajhan even getting overlooked for one test. I think if you prepare slow turning wickets for the upcoming series your fast bowlers aren't going to be able to do anything with the pitch and if our batsmen can negotiate your spinners we will be in for some boring drawn test matches.

Wel.. yo dont have to be so nice Mr. Aussie fan. We dont mind if our quickies have a bad series once in a while. In order to encourage our quicvk bowlers we dont want to prepare pace friendly tracks which will eventually backfire on us, with Aussie quicks picking all the wickets. The need of the hour is spinner friendly tracks and a home advantage. Out side the sub continent, our spinners dont get wickets that help them. If they dont get it even at home, then WTH are they going to do? We're happi if the spinners can bundle the aussie batting order. If the pace bowlers can chip in with a few early breakthrough, that a bonus... in fact there have been instances where our pace bowlers have turned in some match winning performances like Srinath did in Kanpur against the South Africans in 1997. BTW.. Mr. Aussie fan - the Sydney test was won based on the heroics of PuP's left arm spin and Bucknor's eye sight... so, are you going to prepare spinner friendly tracks and employ umpires with eye sight more than 20+ for future BG series in Australia???

[Desi Cartman]

This is awesome! Great for test match cricket to have competitive balanced pitches and I'm really excited for our fast bowlers like Ishant/Zaheer/Patel!! I have no concerns regarding our fast bowling attack on these conditions.

the problem is that they also have Good fast bowlers whereas only Indians have decent spinners, so why not prepare tracks that offer more help to the spinners than pacers :hmmmm2:

[PaiN_KiLLeR]

This is awesome! Great for test match cricket to have competitive balanced pitches and I'm really excited for our fast bowlers like Ishant/Zaheer/Patel!! I have no concerns regarding our fast bowling attack on these conditions.

Fontaine, our sporting tracks are not like Perth where the bowlers can avail pace and bounce from the pitch on all 5 days. They are like the one on which the current Mohd Nissar trophy match is being played where 17 wickets fell on Day 1 and just 3 on Day 3. What you will get to see on these wickets is not great Cricket like we witnessed down under, but boring Test matches where the toss will decide who wins the game, if at all there is a result.

[Fontaine]

the problem is that they also have Good fast bowlers whereas only Indians have decent spinners' date= so why not prepare tracks that offer more help to the spinners than pacers :hmmmm2:

Because our spinners aren't really that good anymore.

[Fontaine]

Fontaine' date=' our sporting tracks are not like Perth where the bowlers can avail pace and bounce from the pitch on all 5 days. They are like the one on which the current Mohd Nissar trophy match is being played where 17 wickets fell on Day 1 and just 3 on Day 3. What you will get to see on these wickets is not great Cricket like we witnessed down under, but boring Test matches where the toss will decide who wins the game, if at all there is a result.[/quote'] It's the same story elsewhere. Tracks break up on the 4th and 5th days, some retain bounce some don't and ofcourse it depends on the conditions as well. Let's wait and see.

[Dravid]

PITCH REPORT: "Since the wicket will have bounce, finger spinners won't be able to extract much spin from it. But wrist spinners like Kumble will prove a handful," says Daljit.

nice idea, to get bhajji removed :D not gonna happen..

[Feed]

Fast deck on cards for first Test AUSTRALIA'S hopes of inflicting early pain on India in the Border-Gavaskar series were given a major boost, with the first Test expected to be played on an upgraded fast and bouncy pitch. More... Fast deck on cards for first Test By Jon Pierik September 18, 2008 AUSTRALIA'S hopes of inflicting early pain on India in the Border-Gavaskar series were given a major boost, with the first Test expected to be played on an upgraded fast and bouncy pitch. The curator of the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, Narayan Raju, has declared the series-opener will provide plenty of encouragement for the fast bowlers. The pitch will not be the dustbowl some players had feared, Raju said. This will benefit the tourists more than India as Australia's attack will be based on quicks Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson. India's obvious strength through the four-Test campaign will be veteran spinners Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, who share more than 900 Test wickets and will be match-winning threats on dry, dusty decks. Australia will rely on uncapped duo Bryce McGain and Jason Krejza in the spin department, but their role may not need to be significant in Bangalore. "We will provide a sporting track with good pace and carry," Raju said. "There will be something for everyone, the spinners included." Australia's breakthrough success of 2004 began with a 217-run win in Bangalore, where fast bowlers Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowiz claimed 15 of the India wickets to fall. That Raju has decided to again play into Australia's hands may not be well received by the Indian team. Four years ago, then-India captain Sourav Ganguly was so incensed when curators failed to shave the grass off the wicket in the crucial third Test in Nagpur that there were allegations this was why he withdrew from the match. Raju said the Bangalore pitch was being scarified for fresh clay and fertiliser to be laid. "The pitch is more or less taken care of and it will have an even covering of grass in the next few days or so." Australia will leave for India on Sunday, and they will spend time in Jaipur and Hyderabad before arriving in Bangalore.

[cowboysfan]

just great-really what we need :mad::mad::mad:

[amits]

dont worry guys. zaheer & co will blow aus off in the 1st test. we have the most underrated fast-bowling attack in the world

[Desi Cartman]

dont worry guys. zaheer & co will blow aus off in the 1st test. we have the most underrated fast-bowling attack in the world

but we also have good spinner which they dont ... samjha ... both teams have good fast bowlers but only ONE team has spinners

[Dinx - the Jinx]

is this Narayan Raju out of his mind or what? I hate these Curators becoming opportunistic in trying to hog the limelight by preparing pitches that suit the visitors and not us. Let them prepare such tracks when Pakistan or Bangladesh or Slanka is touring, not when Australia is .. phulease...

[Fontaine]

This is great. There's always this constant talk about how our senior batsmen are among the world's best so what's the worry if there's a fast and bouncy pitch? Apart from Brett Lee I don't see any other bowler who's great in the Aussi bowling attack. This pitch will help our bowlers who haven't let us down when the conditions are there to be exploited. Sharma will probably make the best use of the bounce and the way Zaheer is getting the ball to swing, the extra pace will only will him now. That leaves the number 3 bowler, first change who could prove to be our achilles heel but the way Munaf Patel performed recently bowling at pace and control will give us a huge boost. I'm confident that our bowlers will make a game of it. I'm not so sure about our out of form batsmen though. And also to all the people here who are getting negative about this pitch, it sure as hell isn't worth it to prepare a slow/spinning track for just one spin bowler in Harbhajan. I would totally agree if he was some world beater who got tremendous spin and took buckets of wickets but he's anything but that. He's an average spinner and it would be foolish and defeatist to prepare a track just to suit ONE spin bowler who's not great to begin with. The pitch being bouncy and fast will help Kumble because he's not a great spinner but will make full use of varying the pace and bounce of his deliveries. Count on it. So to summarize, this is a great thing. We've got three bowlers like Munaf/Ishant/Zaheer who's bowling is suited to this kind of track as opposed to one broken spin bowler in Bhajji. Bring on the Aussies.

[Dinx - the Jinx]

Why should we prepare wickets that will help Ishant and Zaheer and why not that helps Kumble and Harbhajan. When we tour England, SA or Australia, Zaheer and Ishant will get wickets where they can show their mettle, whereas the only place where our spinners can get helpful tracks is back home in India, so why should we deny them that? I dont know why some of you guys are so much happy when you hear about fast pitches. Sure - It will help our fast bowlers. At the same time it will help the Aussie bowlers as well. There is a great chance that they will get more success than our bowlers and that may cost us the test and possibly the series... if this happens abroad, its understandable, we have to adjust to those conditions and pitches and try to win. Why should we be treated as aliens in our own backyard. If they Aussies win, they are not going to go back and praise BCCI or the Curators that they won because of the pace friendly pitches in India. In fact in the 2004 series, we lost the series because one curator in Nagpur thought that he is being very hospitable to the visitors. After the match was over he was forgotten. Only the memories of a series loss to Australia after 36 years thats lingering in the mind. IMHO, we need to prepare pitches that assist spin and if our fast bowlers can get wickets on the surface its a bonus. We have to play to our strength and our strength is spin. In order to nurture our strength, we need conditions that assist spin, nlot necessarily, the dust bowls of the 1990s but atleast not like the ones in Mohali or the Delhi pitch, where we give the match to the opposition on a platter. Our spin reserves are already next to nothing and if we continue encouraging only fast bowlers and no spinners, then we are going to be in deep **** once kumble and bajji are gone. Take the case of Australia - they dont have many spinners knocking the doors. Still, they are not preparing wickets that would assist spin in order to nurture their spin bowlers. Their strength is pace and they create conditions that can exploit their strengths. Why cant we do the same? And why so many of you guys are so much against it?

[Fontaine]

Why should we prepare wickets that will help Ishant and Zaheer and why not that helps Kumble and Harbhajan. When we tour England, SA or Australia, Zaheer and Ishant will get wickets where they can show their mettle, whereas the only place where our spinners can get helpful tracks is back home in India, so why should we deny them that? I dont know why some of you guys are so much happy when you hear about fast pitches. Sure - It will help our fast bowlers. At the same time it will help the Aussie bowlers as well. There is a great chance that they will get more success than our bowlers and that may cost us the test and possibly the series... if this happens abroad, its understandable, we have to adjust to those conditions and pitches and try to win. Why should we be treated as aliens in our own backyard. If they Aussies win, they are not going to go back and praise BCCI or the Curators that they won because of the pace friendly pitches in India. In fact in the 2004 series, we lost the series because one curator in Nagpur thought that he is being very hospitable to the visitors. After the match was over he was forgotten. Only the memories of a series loss to Australia after 36 years thats lingering in the mind. IMHO, we need to prepare pitches that assist spin and if our fast bowlers can get wickets on the surface its a bonus. We have to play to our strength and our strength is spin. In order to nurture our strength, we need conditions that assist spin, nlot necessarily, the dust bowls of the 1990s but atleast not like the ones in Mohali or the Delhi pitch, where we give the match to the opposition on a platter. Our spin reserves are already next to nothing and if we continue encouraging only fast bowlers and no spinners, then we are going to be in deep **** once kumble and bajji are gone. Take the case of Australia - they dont have many spinners knocking the doors. Still, they are not preparing wickets that would assist spin in order to nurture their spin bowlers. Their strength is pace and they create conditions that can exploit their strengths. Why cant we do the same? And why so many of you guys are so much against it?

Uhh, no thanks. We have more and better fast bowlers than spin bowlers. Kumble is gone after this series which leaves just Harbhajan as the only half decent test spin bowler. Whereas we have RP Singh, Pathan, Patel, Ishant, and Zaheer as test fast/swing bowlers. How did the spinning tracks work out in Sri Lanka for the Indian spinners? Kumble was useless and Harbhajan played very well in one test out of three. Hardly any reason to prepare pitches specifically for our one spinner. It's like South Africa preparing spinning tracks just for Paul Harris when they have the likes of Ntini, Steyn and Morkel. How dumb is that?

[amits]

we should go with zaheer, ishant & pravin kumar as the 3 fast bowlers in tests