*Official* Sri Lanka in India

[flibbertyjibber]

Didn't see this but why go on as long as they did?

Surely after 10 overs they would know it was a poor track so why carry on.

[Manee]

Originally Posted by flibbertyjibber

Didn't see this but why go on as long as they did?

Surely after 10 overs they would know it was a poor track so why carry on.

It got worse, as the game wore on. Tyagi bowled one ball which certainly ended all doubt when it viciously broke away from the right hander and rose extremely steeply, with Dhoni parrying the short of a length ball at 137kph well over his head.

Would have been fascinating to watch how this game would have progressed, but we could have been looking at multiple broken fingers, a facial wounds, arm wounds and maybe something worse, if the game continued.

I do hope that this will go some way to showing the difficulty in preparing a sporting track in India. However, it will probably merely go on to support an image that there could be sporting wickets in India but the groundsmen are too incompetant to realise it.

[Cruxdude]

The pitch was not fit enough for cricket. The ball that hit Dilshan was fuller than the previous delivery but rose 3 feet more than that. The thing is everyone in India knows that Delhi pitch is crap then why schedule matches there. We just had one there when the Aussies toured. There are other good centres which host only 1 match in a year and which could be given more matches.

[Craig]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

That he has. I'll reserve my judgment until I see him outside India again.

It's funny, when India were in Australia last, Chappell could not stop raving on about him. Then again he does with every young visiting fast bowler. Sharma is still young I guess, hopefully he can turn it around.

[Craig]

Mahela Jayawardene responds:

'We never expected the pitch to behave like that' l Cricket Features l Global l Cricinfo.com

WAG.

[Sir Alex]

From that article

Still we should not point fingers at anyone. It is a newly relaid pitch. Curators do not make a pitch purposefully - they try to do a good job, make it lively and get something out of it. The preparation was not good. Usually a freshly relaid pitch takes about good 6-12 months for it to season itself. Obviously it would be a challenge if you play on it before that period. But when you see a pitch behaving like that, you do not take too many risks. You should instead try and season the entire square firstly.

I wish I could use a salute smiley.

[Shri]

Sounds like a bit of an ass kisser who goes out of his way to avoid confrontation. Should take a cue from Ponting and just speak his mind - we will all have more players to hate. Win.

[G.I.Joe]

Originally Posted by metallics2006

Sounds like a bit of an ass kisser who goes out of his way to avoid confrontation. Should take a cue from Ponting and just speak his mind - we will all have more players to hate. Win.

Haha, yeah. Obviously there's somebody to blame here. What about the BCCI or the DDCA who let the match be played on that strip?

[Arjun]

What happened was unfortunate, but demonising the DDCA and BCCI was uncalled for. As Mahela and Murali said, the pitch had not been getting much action, and the curator tried something different. Nobody wants to prepare a dangerous pitch, least of all, those associated with a key venue such as this. Some experts, fans and journalists bring up previous matches at Kotla, such as the Champions' League, but those pitches were just plain dull. They were not lethal, like this one.

Those who suggest the Delhi should be suspended, even for a day, are jumping the gun. It's an honest mistake; the curator admits it, the committee admits it, the DDCA admits it. This is one of the few world class grounds in the country, and can offer a lot more than some other places, with poor infrastructure, inadequate facilities and ill-behaved, partisan crowds. In this case, the BCCI can step in and take control of the ground and possibly the DDCA, for an interim period, until things are back to normal.

We saw a practice match at Hampshire for the India tour in 2002 played on a bad wicket. Both teams agreed to withdraw the faster bowlers, and the match lasted the whole duration. Hampshire is now an international venue. Irate Indian fans remember New Zealand, where a whole tour was played on pitches like these, and there were some deliveries which hit the Indian batsmen hard- like two that snorted at Parthiv Patel in the second innings at Hamilton. Rather than blame the pitches, many blamed the batsmen from both teams (mostly Indian) for lack of application. There may be other instances less famous, but none have created as much outrage as this one, so theres' no need for the "Ban Delhi" calls. It was a mistake, we all admit it, but letting the situation go out of control was a failure as well.

[archie mac]

Originally Posted by Arjun

What happened was unfortunate, but demonising the DDCA and BCCI was uncalled for. As Mahela and Murali said, the pitch had not been getting much action, and the curator tried something different. Nobody wants to prepare a dangerous pitch, least of all, those associated with a key venue such as this. Some experts, fans and journalists bring up previous matches at Kotla, such as the Champions' League, but those pitches were just plain dull. They were not lethal, like this one.

Those who suggest the Delhi should be suspended, even for a day, are jumping the gun. It's an honest mistake; the curator admits it, the committee admits it, the DDCA admits it. This is one of the few world class grounds in the country, and can offer a lot more than some other places, with poor infrastructure, inadequate facilities and ill-behaved, partisan crowds. In this case, the BCCI can step in and take control of the ground and possibly the DDCA, for an interim period, until things are back to normal.

We saw a practice match at Hampshire for the India tour in 2002 played on a bad wicket. Both teams agreed to withdraw the faster bowlers, and the match lasted the whole duration. Hampshire is now an international venue. Irate Indian fans remember New Zealand, where a whole tour was played on pitches like these, and there were some deliveries which hit the Indian batsmen hard- like two that snorted at Parthiv Patel in the second innings at Hamilton. Rather than blame the pitches, many blamed the batsmen from both teams (mostly Indian) for lack of application. There may be other instances less famous, but none have created as much outrage as this one, so theres' no need for the "Ban Delhi" calls. It was a mistake, we all admit it, but letting the situation go out of control was a failure as well.

As anyone on this site done this?

[G.I.Joe]

Originally Posted by Arjun

What happened was unfortunate, but demonising the DDCA and BCCI was uncalled for..

Yeah, right. If the BCCI didn;'t care about its votebank, they'd not have allotted the game to Delhi to begin with, especially after the pitches at the CL. And if the DDCA didn't care solely about the $$, they'd have refused to host the fixture because they well and truly knew it was an undercooked pitch. This was nothing but pure greed at the cost of the game.

[Sir Alex]

Both Kolkata and Delhi did not deserve these games. kolkota for the terrible shape the stadium is in (floodlights without generator backup etc) and delhi due to substandard pitches.

[Somerset]

Originally Posted by Arjun

Irate Indian fans remember New Zealand, where a whole tour was played on pitches like these, and there were some deliveries which hit the Indian batsmen hard- like two that snorted at Parthiv Patel in the second innings at Hamilton. Rather than blame the pitches, many blamed the batsmen from both teams (mostly Indian) for lack of application.

There may be other instances less famous, but none have created as much outrage as this one, so theres' no need for the "Ban Delhi" calls. It was a mistake, we all admit it, but letting the situation go out of control was a failure as well.

Hamilton actually had a couple of matches that were woeful in the early 2000s, that test against India which you mention, plus a one day match not given international status between New Zealand and a FICA World XI (which, when you considered its strength against some other sides given international standard makes you question if the match should've been an ODI). Consequently no international matches were played at Hamilton for a couple of years whilst the wicket and pitches at Seddon Park were improved upon - its now one of New Zealand's best venues for international and domestic cricket.

Originally Posted by Arjun

Those who suggest the Delhi should be suspended, even for a day, are jumping the gun.

The point I'm making is that there seems to be a history of issues over the pitch used in India at Delhi yesterday, much like Hamilton in the early 2000s, and eventually its produced an even bigger problem with the wicket yesterday - obviously it was disappointing that Seddon Park wasn't used for an entire couple of seasons but the positive aspects from reviewing the surface and ensuring it was of enough quality to host international matches was worthwhile in the long run.

[Arjun]

Originally Posted by Somerset

The point I'm making is that there seems to be a history of issues over the pitch used in India at Delhi yesterday, much like Hamilton in the early 2000s, and eventually its produced an even bigger problem with the wicket yesterday - obviously it was disappointing that Seddon Park wasn't used for an entire couple of seasons but the positive aspects from reviewing the surface and ensuring it was of enough quality to host international matches was worthwhile in the long run.

Residing in New Zealand, you might have a better idea of the kind of coverage given to the Seddon (then Westpac) Park pitch in Hamilton, at that time. Here, the media has been rather one-sided in their coverage of the Delhi fiasco, and seem to demonise DDCA, and the BCCI, rather than suggest useful corrective action. They've been unanimous in the "Ban Delhi" and "Capital Shame" quotes, and highlighted only such claims. When DDCA officials had some explanations (including sensible ones), and offered unconditional apology, the media response had been highly critical, giving them no chance.

This was a dull pitch, producing dull games, throughout this year. Only for this match had the pitch become seriously nasty, because an experiment with grass had failed, miserably. Banning the Kotla won't help- any lesser venue that gets the game is equally suspect to a bad pitch. Nobody, for instance, predicted how bad the Indore (ODI against Lanka in 1997) pitch was, until things got out of hand. A better idea would be for the BCCI to take control of this ground and possibly the association, so that things are brought back to normal. Kotla is one of only seven grounds in India with decent infrastructure, so the BCCI should intervene and see to it that the pitch is fixed- they can buy some time before the World Cup by shifting more matches from the near future elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Sir Alex

kolkota for the terrible shape the stadium is in (floodlights without generator backup etc)

Basically power cuts that go on too long- they can hold all-day matches until the power backup problem is fixed.

[Migara]

Chetan Chauhan says SL chickened out. He would have been ****ting all over the pitch if he was facing Malinga on that.
Sri Lanka 'chickened out', says DDCA vice-president

He further says if it was Aussies or saffers they woudn't have called it off. In that case Indians will be the ones running for cover on that pitch. Then the snorters will be good 5-10k quicker.