Fast pitches. That's the latest project of the Indian cricket board. Former Indian skipper Kapil Dev has been appointed as the chief director of the Curatorship Programme and two experts from New Zealand have been visiting cricket stadia in India -- ten have been initially selected for this project -- towards this end.
The genesis of this idea is unclear but it is a long overdue reaction. The Indian batsmen have had serious problems playing on fast, bouncy wickets and this has been painfully apparent during the tours of South Africa and, to a lesser extent, the West Indies. The media have had a field day attacking the board for providing soft pitches to make the team look good at home and argued, rightly, that this has caused the team more embarrassment that help.
Of course, nobody has at any point said a word about who was behind the idea of preparing little dust bowls for every Test match which India played at home for quite some time now. There is also no hint that this was an official policy; it has always been taken for granted that the pitches were made this way because the so-called "home advantage" must be maintained.
The preparation of soft wickets began in right earnest after India discovered that it had a decent leg-spinner in Anil Kumble. Prior to that, the pitches were definitely more inclined to take spin rather than help pace bowlers as a game progressed, but Kumble's arrival heralded the creation of the famous dust bowls. On such surfaces, the man was virtually unplayable. India have more than held their own at home largely due to this. Most of the other teams which have visited India during this period have pace as the spearhead of their attack; Australia could have turned the tables if Warne had been part of the team when they played a one-off Test last year but he was not fit and did not make the tour.
In the light of the fact that India now have pace as their spearhead -- they have Prasad and Srinath (when he recovers) as the opening pair and a good backup in Abey Kuruvilla -- it did not need any great brains to decide to make the pitches a bit more lively. This can only help India more as well. The board has done nothing more than the obvious. There is no need for all this fanfare but then when a man like Jagmohan Dalmiya announces even the most mundane thing he loves to act as though he is handing down the Ten Commandments.
There are some points which need to be examined as far as this policy is concerned. Has the team management been taken into confidence about this? This is a quantum shift for India and the men who have to benefit from it are the players. The team is still in the Caribbean and will have to visit Bermuda before it returns, so it is obvious that this again is a brainwave which has hit somebody in isolation. And does this mean that India will now concentrate on trying to discover or produce more fast bowlers and forget about spin which has always been its traditional strength? Nobody is clear on this point, but then Indian cricket policy has rarely been clear on anything. One must bear in mind that this is a period in time when there are calls for even a team like the West Indies to have at least one good spinnner in the team as this seems to be a trend in world cricket.
One would like to see what happens after a year. Once faster wickets are laid for Tests, the results are bound to be different from what people were used to. Without intending any insult to the Indian pace attack, it must be said that most other teams have much better fast bowlers. If one pits the Indian trio against Wasim Akram and Waqar on a helpful wicket, it is quite obvious who would be better suited to take advantage. The same goes for even an ageing Walsh and Ambrose or Donald and his mates. This may well turn out to be another case of shooting oneself in the foot -- and with a homemade rifle too.