It is a big surprise that the commentators kept referring to the Ahmedabad track as being a ‘good wicket’. To me, that is either a gross misrepresentation of facts or a polite manner of understating the obvious; it was a track that could very well have seen another five days of cricket on it and not had a result. And this, to me, is by no means the definition of a good cricket wicket.
Around 1600 runs were scored in the test match for the loss of 21 wickets, making it an average of 80 runs per wicket. Even by the standards of this day and age, where the art of run-scoring has ceased to be an art any more, but has been reduced to how a batsman avoids getting out to the boredom caused due to the lack of any challenge, it is big. And apart from the first one hour’s play, when India lost four wickets in a hurry, the remaining 29 hours saw only 17 wickets, making it a slow drab of near-about one wicket every session!
It cannot be a good wicket for anyone save the batsmen; neither for the bowlers or fielders, nor for the spectators in the stadium or on television, or the ICC or the sport at large. Why, even the good batsmen would prefer more of a challenge in the track than this one, and the fans would really be hoping for something better than this in the second game at Kanpur.
Unfortunately, the Green Park in Kanpur had come under a bit of a scanner for the issues with the pitch the last occasion a test was played here. The surface was a bit of a minefield, and the batsmen had found it difficult to adjust themselves to it. The ball had spun from very early in the game, and despite batting first and scoring 265, they had gone on to lose the game. And this could mean that the curator would be given stand-in instructions to prevent something of a repeat of that game, ensuring a chance of over-compensation. That, in turn, could lead us to a repeat of the Ahmedabad game.
India has a lot to learn from the first test match. Despite the pitch, the Sri Lankan quick bowlers bowled slightly better than their Indian counterparts. And when one considers that the pair of Dammika Prasad and Chanaka Welegedara had not even played five games between them, it begs the question what was wrong with the Indian attack. And lesser said the better about the Indian spinners, who got absolutely no purchase from the wicket and ended with combined figures of 3/495 in the game. The only solace for them would be the fact that Muthiah Muralitharan bowled almost 40 overs in the second innings but ended wicketless