India-Sri Lanka Cricket Series a Disappointment
The India-Sri Lanka series touted as the race to number one in the rankings has turned out to be a dud after the end of the first test match in Motera.
The test match in Ahmadabad is all that is wrong with Indian cricket. When there have been calls to save the oldest form of the game around the world, The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has dished out boredom to drive the fans away from the grounds. Its seems like BCCI is more worried about finances than the state of pitches in India.
Sambit Bal last year wrote a piece on cricinfo blasting Pakistani pitches after the Karachi game, but the pitches in India are not that far behind. Sambit’s intentions may have been good, but singling out pitches in Pakistan was not fair. Reading the recent article by Dileep Premachandran, it seems like there is not much of a difference between the pitches in Pakistan and India. India has one of the worst percentages of results when compared to other cricketing nations.
According to Dileep, India has hosted 24 games in the past 60 months out of which 11 have been draws. This is a pathetic statistic for a team trying to become the best side in the world. With ever increasing T20 leagues in India, the BCCI has to take more interest in improving the quality of test cricket in India. I don’t think that anything of that sort has been even tried yet by the board. As Sourav Ganguly rightly mentioned in his column, even though Rahul Dravid and Mahela scored those brilliant hundreds, the Motera pitch was a real disappointment.
No one wants to watch a game where the bowlers are just mere participants with no effect whatsoever and the batsmen are running the show. The unfortunate part is that the groundsmen in India are under so much pressure to make matches last for five days so the BCCI can make more money out of TV rights. Already we have seen paltry crowds for test matches in India and with these sorts of pitches, ardent lovers of the format will also be driven out of the stadiums in the future.
Test cricket is still the premium form of cricket around the world. The ICCI should crack down heavily on boards that encourage pitches like Motera for International fixtures. The second test match is on and India has made a huge score again. I hope for the sake of the fans that this pitch turns out to be different.
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