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Pitching for trouble

Twelve years ago, a nice grassy Wankhede track had the Indian team in a ferment. As per the team management's orders, every single blade of grass was shaved off, changing the track radically in character.

"They were scared of Richard Hadlee," a BCCI functionary recalls. "And what happened? They lost -- to a spinner!"

The incident dates back to 1988, venue of the first Test of that series against the Kiwis. And though Hadlee took ten in the game, it was spinner John Bracewell who nailed the Indian hide to the mast, taking six in the second innings to help bowl the Indians out for a paltry 145.

This is not the only instance of such things happening. The curator of the MA Chidambaram Stadium, chatting with Rediff early last year, saw red when the pitches committee set up to prepare sporting tracks was mentioned. "What pitches committee," he fumed. "Simply wasting money, paying all those fellows, bringing soil experts from New Zealand, all that tamasha. I remember making a quick track here for a Test and the then Indian captain had a fit, he told me to water it and shave the grass off and make it slow. And who was the captain? Kapil Dev, who is now your chairman of the pitches committee!"

Kapil has since moved on, to coach the Indian team. And the committee is now headed by Krish Srikkanth, who was in a palace coup ousted by Kapil at a time when it looked as though Srikkanth was a cert to become coach of the Indian senior team.

Kapil's tenure didn't see any signs of sporting wickets being prepared. Ironically, it was while he was coach, and Sachin Tendulkar captain, that Dhiraj Parsana -- himself a member of the pitches committee -- prepared a quick track at the Motera, in Ahmedabad for a Test match against the Kiwis last year. The team management intervened and demanded that the grass be shaved off. The result was a dull, lifeless track on which the two sides played out to a monotonous draw.

Adding insult to the curator's injury was the captain's statement, at the post-match press conference, that he was unhappy with the track prepared for the game. "There is," Sachin said at the time, in an attempt to deflect the flak he was getting from the media, "nothing in the pitch for the bowlers."

There was -- before the captain and coach pressurised Parsana into rendering it lifeless.

Parsana took that lying down -- but if indications are anything to go by, a similar attempt at the Wankhede for the February 24 Test against South Africa could lead to a nasty showdown.

Krish Srikkanth, now chairing the pitches committee, has instructed the curators of the Wankhede, and the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, to prepare fast, sporting wickets for the two Tests against the Proteas. And he has expressly stated that the pitches will be kept true to that character, and any attempt by the team management to interfere will be resisted. 'The pitch will be quick and sporting,' Srikkanth maintains, 'no matter what the team management says.'

The preparations are already under way. And watching the ground staff at work, a member of the Mumbai Ranji mused: "There is no point having a fast track for the international games when the domestic games are still played on flat tracks. The tracks for the domestic level need to be first improved, and the players at that level have to learn to cope with good fast bowling on sporting tracks. Only then will it be advisable to have fast, grassy wickets for international games. This way, all that will happen is that India will be in danger of losing their first ever Test series at home in years."

That does sound a likely scenario, considering that the Proteas have a very good pace attack. Then again, a defeat at home might set the cat amongst the pigeons and force the administration to take serious stock of the situation.

"We just can't play fast bowling. Look at the shameful performance in Australia," comments Nadeem Memon, curator and stadium in-charge of the Wankhede ground.

"The cricketers' attitude is not positive. I have worked hard to prepare a hard and grassy wicket. It will be a sporting wicket, which will last the entire five days. It might take turn from the fourth day, but not before that. It will be a typical English-type wicket, there will be movement in the air and off the seam as well," Memon says, while showing us over the track being readied.

"I am sure that this time there will be no interference from any of the players," the curator adds. "Srikkanth has instructed us not to take orders from anyone to alter the nature of the wicket. This time, our players will have a real tough time winning the series."

So what has gone into preparing the wicket at Wankhede?

Red soil has been brought from Panvel-Uran, a suburb of Bombay famous for this variety of soil. The red soil is mixed with a kind of yellow soil called murum, in the ratio 70-30. The yellow soil hardens the surface and binds the soil together besides preventing the pitch from tearing.

"In Maharashtra and Gujarat, the wickets are all hard-rolled and there is no trace of grass on them. That explains why games are decided on the first innings lead on so many occasions," says Nadeem.

When we checked the Wankhede track earlier this week, it had all the signs of a lively, result-oriented track, with scope for the ball to do a lot off the deck. If this nature is not interfered with, then the likes of Allan Donald, who has been forced to postpone his retirement plans by Ali Bacher in order to make the Indian trip, and Shaun Pollock, will probably fancy themselves back in Durban, when they trot out onto the ground on February 24 for the start of the two-Test series against India.