Mr. McMillan of NZ advices us Indians to make "good" pitches in order to do well abroad. Can I ask him if NZ had made "good" pitches in their country when India went to visit them? If so, then why did they huff and puff to score 120-130 odd runs to win the test and one day matches, with a liberal help from the umpires? Assuming he is right, the Indian batsmen were lousy and they could get only about 125 runs in an innings, we would expect the great NZ batsmen to rattle these runs with out any loss of wicket and in no time. That did not happen, the kiwis lost 6-7 wickets to get these meagre runs in all matches. I just want to show that the wickets were definitely not "good" wickets there. NZ made wickets to suit their strength so that they can win and succeeded in doing that. So, whats the harm if Indians make wickets that suits their strength? I think this is a strategy adopted by visitors to India to raise this talk about Indians preparing "underprepared wickets" to create pressure through the Indian media (who is too willing to help the visitor's cause) so that pitches that help the Indian cause are not made. We, like everyone else should play to our strengths, more so at home.
i think what sehwag said was right b`coz if we look at the pitches which were served to us by the kiwis we can see not even there team was able to bat convincingly,so there is no point for india to make sporting pitches.we shd have given them turners which shd have turned frm day 2 onwards,then only they wud have tasted there own medicine.i agree we do not win abroad but atleast we r not blasred at home which kiwis get more often.
please... dont make cricket another soccer.. the beauty of playing in different countiries is not in the picteresque locations.. its the variety in the game.. tennis for example. has 4 major tournaments.. each a different type of surface.. and very rarely has a single player won all the titles in a year.. that makes tennis grandslam most coveted... then why r ppl trying to create assembly line pitches..
if aussies are giving bounce, new zealand and england swing.. why not spin in India...
the reason for India's not so dominating performance at home is more of a mental problem.. if u really need to address the issue of winning series abroad.. provide every second ranji level pitch suited for pace with bounce.. so we have a good mix of spin and pace in India' future players.. dont kill spin..
we need to note that every time Indian spinners got a spinning track.. they routed the opposition .. aussies in 2001 for example..
the definition of a sporting wicket is subject to tremendous debate. the author of this article is another of the type who are quick to criticise indian players and quicker to praise foreign players. india should play to her strengths everywhere else they does the same, the NZ is a prime example. do you think that the english will ever prepare wickets to aid spinners. if indian wickets were so bad, how did gillespie and akhtar bowl with so much success here in india and why does shane warne have such a pathetic record in india!!!! the indian cricket media is the teams worst enemy
Why did the selectors include Zaheer Khan,Harbhajan and Kumble for the one day series? Balaji bowled faster and with more enthusiasm than Zaheer Khan, but without luck. After the initial fiery Motera spell, Zaheer's performance has plummeted from the woeful to that of the labouring exhausted old man in his deathbed. Whatever the reason for Zaheer's shameless performance, he deserves to be dropped. Test cricket is not for quitters. India should rely on the young turks like Balaji,Salvi,Pathan,Munaf Patel,Kartik and Mishra. Pitches could be responsible for bowlers not getting bounce but bowlers who play test matches cannot become quitters midway in a test match because the pitches do not help them. In Mohali, Zaheer and Harbhajan just quit to bowl with any interest, probably because they were upset with the pitch.
If other countries are making fast pitches, good for them. Why do you want to change our pitches accordingly. Each aspect of cricket is art. Lets be proud that we master the art of spin and make our pitches use our dominance as other countries uses their pitches to their advantages. For the god's sake we are pumping money into ICC and let others dictate us??? Instead of changing our pitches why not we dare other countries to beat us on our spin turf. Let them change their pitches to the spin conditions if they want to compete with us in INDIA. We should sponsor for spin pitches in the subcontinent( where the cricket is most popular) and improve our skill in this aspect. Lets have a different team(no spinners) when we are going to other countries and let them seperately get trained in fast pitches which will not be used to host the matches in india.... Lets turn the tables around
The pitches used for first class cricket should be sporting wicket, so that our players are ready to face green tops abroad. But not the one on which a test is being played. If our strong point is the weak point of our opponents, then we must always play to that. And who the hell is McMillan!
