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New Delhi: Chief curator Venkat Sundaram flashed a smile after looking at the well-rolled Ferozeshah Kotla pitch. And understandably so. The IPL might be a domestic event, but the presence of an array of international cricketers makes the game on Wednesday evening the first high-profile match after farce played out between India and Sri Lanka in the Capital three months back.
Interestingly, 10 of the 22 players - Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Sanath Jayasuriya, Tillakaratne Dilshan - who figured in that abandoned fifth and final one-day international are back at the Kotla. And SK Tarapore, one of the two field umpires who took the decision to call off the Lanka game, will also be taking his position in the middle during the Mumbai Indians-Delhi Daredevils match.
Pity then that the first home game of the Daredevils will not be played on the same pitch, but on the adjacent centre-wicket - purely due to a request from team skipper Gautam Gambhir.
"There's no need to worry about the pitch anymore. It's playing well and the bounce is nice and even. I don't think there will be much of a difference batting first or second because the pitch is rock-hard and will hold through the game. The Daredevils played a few practice games on the centre-wicket and scored around 160-170 on the wicket. However, I don't want to get into predicting scores for the next game," Sundaram said.
The pitch doesn't have a single blade of grass and was left to bake in the sun all Monday. There was a little sprinkle towards the evening and rolled meticulously with a 0.75 ton hand roller as the first trace of white shine appeared under the artificial lights - indicating that the track is deemed good for strokeplay.
Sundaram admits he was tempted to play the game on the same wicket as the Lanka match and reiterates that there are no demons in that pitch anymore.
"Repairing a pitch needs careful analysis. We scrawled the surface, analysed what went wrong and did the top dressing again and watered it. If you look at the entire square, we have 9 pitches and all pitches have grass except these two, indicating that there were no roots inside - damaged by early and repeated use of heavy roller while initially preparing the wicket. This is not a time to sow grass so we have left it bald but it will not be slow or low," he said.
Andy Atkinson was also present at the Kotla, taking snaps of the wicket and also taking first-hand information about the pitch preparation. Atkinson too sounded confident of this new pitch. "This wicket will play well. Earlier when they played the Lanka game, there was a bit of a wave on the pitch, now the top surface is absolutely flat. It will play even and not go up and down," he said.
Dilshan, who had cringed in pain after being hit on the elbow during that game, and Sanath Jayasuriya who hit a brave 31 will be sitting in opposite dugouts and will be joined in by a plethora of big hitters as Dwanye Bravo and Keiron Pollard also join Mumbai Indians.
Irrespective of who wins the game, Ferozeshah Kotla pitch will remain the focus of attention and it banks on these big-hitters to redeem its reputation.
