Life's a pitch

To the best of my knowledge, the ICC only has guidelines some nonsense spouted on what constitutes a good wicket for test cricket. There's nothing mentioned about one-day cricket.

CNN-IBN & CricketNext report that a couple of captains and match referee Madugalle have complained about the pitch at the Brabourne stadium for one of the ICC Champions Trophy games.

I am certainly not complaining. I'm loving these low-scoring games. They're far more fascinating to follow than 'Team A 350/8 in 50 overs lost to Team B 351/5 in 47 overs' type of games.

The ICC insisted that venues which would host games in this tournament should not have any advertising/sponsorships associated with them which would conflict with the ICC's official sponsors. As a result, venues like Eden Gardens, Wankhede stadium, Chinnaswamy stadium and MA Chidambaram stadium were left out and Mohali, Ahmedabad, Brabourne (Bombay) and Jaipur were drafted in and allocated games. Given the volume of games at each venue (5 for the first three venues and 6 for Jaipur), the rainy season having ended in most parts of India a month or so ago and the frequency of games (albeit being played on different pitches), it was but natural that the pitches wouldn't be great for batting. Just as bowlers are resigned to encountering batting wickets in one-dayers, perhaps the batsmen also need to reconcile themselves to the fact that the only time they can get scores of 280 and above is when they're facing a pathetic bowling lineup.

The BCCI really ought to make it clear to the ICC that it doesn't think low-scoring games are bad for one-day cricket and that it was the ICC's intransigence which has ensured that the games are being played in tier-2 cricket grounds (aside from Mohali, which is tier-1 and Brabourne, which is tier-7 and last hosted a one-dayer more than a decade ago).

Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy, match referee, pitch