To make an international cricket event successful, there has to be aggressive marketing but while doing so cricketing conditions must not be neglected. It happened at the Cricket Club of India (CCI), which cannot escape the responsibility for messing up the pitch preparation. The International Cricket Council, too, has to share the blame for its casual approach in not creating ideal conditions.

The excitement of playing five matches, including the final at the Brabourne Stadium under lights, seems to have convinced the CCI management that spectator-friendly conditions would make the game interesting. Little did they realise that one needs the expertise of a professional in making pitch and ground conditions conducive to a good game of cricket. Unfortunately, that part was overlooked.

Unconvincing reasons

Instead of going into all the unconvincing reasons given by the BCCI for not playing these matches at the Wankhede and Chinnaswamy stadiums (Eden Gardens was not chosen justifiably because of the monsoon), one needs to know why other Test centres were not allotted matches.

The ICC went on inspecting the approved international centres in India but eventually agreed to the ones recommended by the BCCI. If the sponsor at the Punjab Cricket Association's Mohali stadium could be convinced so that the PCA could adhere to the norms of the ICC, surely the sponsors in the various stands of the Wankhede too would have acceded to the request of the Mumbai Cricket Association.

The BCCI has a Pitch and Ground committee but the ICC seems to have no faith in the committee, which has been overseeing the preparations at the staging centres whenever a series is played in India. If the ICC pitch consultant Andy Atkinson, who visited the Brabourne Stadium twice during the off-season, had instructed the West Zone member of the BCCI's Pitch and Ground committee to monitor the progress of the pitch preparations, better cricket could have been played.

One reason cited for terrible pitch conditions at the Brabourne Stadium was the heavy monsoon in Mumbai. Were the rains only confined to the Brabourne Stadium and not to the Wankhede Stadium, which is just a stone's throw away? The last heavy shower that Mumbai received was on the October 2. But all the three practice games played at the Wankhede pitch produced big scores.

Major process

How could the Brabourne Stadium pitch get affected though it was covered? The preparation and maintenance of the pitch during the off-season is a major process which only experts can handle on a daily basis, but here at the Brabourne Stadium the ICC experts were occasional visitors. The advantage that the ground staff has at any association, is that having been involved in preparing the pitches for the inter-state or international matches, they are well equipped to determine the behaviour of the surface compared to the ground staff at a social club like the CCI.

Now that there is hardly any time for major repairs to the pitch, the ICC should either take over the Brabourne Stadium pitch preparation or shift the final to another Test centre. The BCCI will have to take a policy decision under which the affiliated clubs that are allotted the matches should be under the scrutiny of the State association and not act independently. By acting independently, not only did the CCI mess up with the pitch, the high prices of tickets deprived the common Mumbaikar of even watching the matches.

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