Comments on: Pitch Doctors

By: Rayaz Siddiqi

Rayaz Siddiqi — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:04:01 +0000

There does seem to be an element of double standards here, well brought out in your article. It now seems that teams will aim to get an advantage whichever way they can, and if this means influencing the state of the pitch, then thats fair game. I do also think that if the team is good enough, they should be able to handle any conditions, as ultimately the team with the better all-round skill should win.

By: MohanK

MohanK — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:09:32 +0000

Ron

The point of the article though is that when teams visit India, they ought to expect “dust bowls”. Everyone from Border to Ponting — with Buchanan thrown in for good measure — has whinged and moaned about pitches in India being “doctored” if it had a dusty look to it. Buchanan even moaned about the pitch when his team won in Bangalore in 2004!

No! On the contrary, the pitches in India would have been “doctored” if they were seaming pitches! And that was Ganguly’s point in the Nagpur Test of the 2004 series!

Waugh sat on a pedestal and called Ganguly a cheat for the latter demanding that the Taj Mahal stay in Agra! Would Waugh now call Moles a cheat for pleading that the Tasman Sea stays where it is?

By: Ron

Ron — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:01:27 +0000

Everyone knows India is better, so nobody blames NZ for saying they should doctor the pitches to their advantage. I’m not sure how much of an advantage they would gain anyway. But if the teams were evenly matched, NZ would be cheaters. For example the India-South Africa series. One flat track, Sehwag 319 and draw, one greenish pitch, India bowled out almost for a record low and SA win, and finally one rank turner, India win. Everybody complained claiming that India would do anything to win but really it was a fair enough setup over the 3 games.
In any case different types of pitches make cricket interesting. The last thing we need are more of these matches where each wicket is worth 60 runs.

By: Yankee

Yankee — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:21:49 +0000

I don’t understand what the Kiwi coach is upto. It doesn’t seem like NZs were seeing the ball well in a seamer friendly conditions either. It was not the spinners who broke Kiwis back first up in the last test.

Imagine a seamer friendly track for the second test, Dhoni winning the toss, and asking the Kiwis to take first strike.