Thanks to an India-South Africa Test that didn’t even last three days five months ago, followed by a square turner in the opening group stage match of the World Twenty20 between India and New Zealand the Jamtha wicket is in the news for all the wrong reasons.
And the International Cricket Committee, it seems, is leaving no stone unturned in trying to avoid a hat-trick of disastrous wickets for international games in the Orange City.
Over the last five days, there has been frantic action on the square at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium. Andy Atkinson, the ICC pitch consultant, headed straight to Nagpur after arriving in India. The BCCI also summoned Samandar Singh Chauhan, the Madhya Pradesh curator with a reputation of being a flat-bed specialist, in place of the ailing Taposh Chatterjee, the Rajasthan curator who oversaw the preparation for last week’s pitch.
The switchOne of the first decisions Atkinson and Chauhan made was to switch both the remaining games from the strip that hosted the Test and WT20 opener to an adjoining one. But that hasn’t exactly enthused the South African camp about the nature of the wicket.
“When we got here, on the first day of practice the wicket was very dry and we just prepared ourselves accordingly to play on it. Obviously, it’s changed a bit now, we’re not playing on the same wicket…,” captain Faf du Plessis said ahead of his team’s crucial match against the in-form West Indies.
“I assume that the reason they’re changing it is to not be as dry, or not to spin as much as it possibly could have on that dry surface. But it’s still two teams competing and possibly going to be a spinning deck, so I don’t think too much will change.”
Later in the evening, Atkinson instructed the groundstaff to uncover the strip that was under wraps the whole day, possibly to survive the beating sun.
He then showered freshly cut grass after watering the wicket and rolled it for almost half an hour. If Atkinson’s last-ditch efforts end up turning the strip into a fair wicket, cricket fans can hope for a balanced contest rather than the toss turning out to be the decisive factor.
Variety of wicketsThe first fortnight of WT20 has seen too many extreme kinds of wickets, thus making the conditions the most vital factor in the outcome of matches.
du Plessis was surprised with such variety of wickets.
“To be honest, I didn’t expect it to be like this. Obviously, playing a lot of IPL cricket for years now, I’ve found that wickets in IPL have generally been quite good and consistent. Barring one or two games through the IPL, you generally get similar runs on the board right through all the venues. This World Cup, it’s been a little different,” he said.
