‘Tough to bat on these tracks'

The other day, Australian Adam Gilchrist lamented that batting-friendly tracks were making the IPL a ‘six-hitting' tournament. 23 sixes were hit at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground as host Delhi Daredevils outhit Gilchrist's Kings XI Punjab last week.

Mahela Jayawardene found himself at the other end of the situation on Wednesday in Kochi Tuskers' 55-run loss to Deccan Chargers on a seamer-friendly Nehru Stadium wicket here.

“It's tough when you bat on these kinds of tracks; everyone found out that,” said Kochi captain Jayawardene after his team wobbled to 74 all out, this season's lowest total and the third lowest in the league's history.

“Kumar (Chargers captain Sangakkara) batted well, but he got beaten quite a few times as well.”

Stranger at home

The seaming track, where the Tuskers lost six wickets with just 11 runs on the board — five of them being ducks — made Kochi virtually a stranger at home.

“It's a challenging wicket, but sometimes, you know, as a home team, we need to think twice about it,” said the Sri Lankan.

“We saw the wicket yesterday. I don't want to go through the discussion I had with the curator, but let me put it this way; I don't think this was what we wanted.”

The wicket for Tuskers' first two home games had something in it for everybody, he said.

“The first two games we played here, against Chennai and Bangalore, they were even wickets, it had something for the bowlers as well as batsmen who could actually challenge themselves and bat well.

“I thought this was a touch too much in favour of the bowlers, so it's difficult to say it's a perfect T-20 wicket, but I don't complain too much because we have to adapt to all sorts of wickets. Probably we didn't do that today.”

He said it was tough to recover after losing six quick wickets. “When you lose four, five, six wickets in the first six overs, it's always going to be tough. But credit should go to them as well. I think Ishant (Sharma) bowled really well, really good areas and created opportunities.”

And for the record, there was just one six in the entire game.