Placid wickets a bane for Test cricket

It's painful and ironic to have to write on any subject other than the Mumbai tragedy on its first anniversary, but life must go on.

Placid wickets a bane for Test cricket

It's painful and ironic to have to write on any subject other than the Mumbai tragedy on its first anniversary, but life must go on.

As thoughts turn homewards, one is also dismayed to read about the shambolic, astronomically high-scoring cricket series being played against Sri Lanka.

The slaughter of hapless bowlers on featherbed wickets at Ahmedabad and Vadodara, doctored to last the distance at the behest of greedy, myopic administrators will only hasten the death of Test cricket.

In his column yesterday, Ricky Ponting made a reference to the Indian series being played on placid tracks that have produced ridiculously one-sided cricket at the expense of tormented bowlers.

As his upbeat team goes into today's first Test against dispirited, disunited West Indies at Brisbane's Gabba Oval, the Australian skipper writes in his syndicated column: "There is talk from time to time about the demise of Test cricket and the surfaces we play on have a lot to do with that.

Bit in it for all
"The condition of the pitch dictates the type of game you end up with and Brisbane offers something for everyone fast bowlers, batsmen and spinners as Shane Warne used to show year after year.

"But if you end up with a two innings game, like India had against Sri Lanka recently (at Ahmedabad), when 426 played 760 for seven, people are not going to go to watch it."

Describing the Gabba as "one of the best cricket venues in the world", Ponting says: "The extra pace and bounce offered to fast bowlers always has you on your mettle.

"And despite some suggestions that the West Indies won't provide much opposition we are particularly wary of their quicks in these conditions.

"But by the same token, once the pitch loses its early moisture it is great for batting.

"This all combines to make Brisbane a terrific place to play cricket."

With the Australians fiercely determined to move north to Numero Uno position from their current No 4 Test ranking, Ponting has stressed the importance of making an early impact from the first session of the first Test, a point KHALIDOSCOPE has repeatedly stressed with reference to the Indian team.

Planning well
Mindful of his team's failure to take England's last wicket in the fateful Cardiff Test after dominating proceedings in a match that had a major bearing in his team losing the Ashes, Ponting has spoken to his players about "identifying periods of play where we need to adapt and adjust quicker than we did during the Ashes."

Ponting also knows too well the danger of underestimating the opposition.

"In recent years we have lost a one-day match to Bangladesh and a Twenty20 match to Zimbabwe," he bristles.

"After what happened during the Ashes, we could not be more up for this contest," says Ponting.

Early this morning, underdogs Windies were keeping their fingers crossed that batting stalwart Ramnaresh Sarwan, who suffered a back injury during practice yesterday, would pass a fitness test. The injury does not bode well for the Trinidad and Tobago player who has been secretly struggling with a sore back.

Fringe batsmen Narsinghe Deonarine and Travis Dowlin are being considered as replacements for Sarwan who, with a Test average of 42.32, is the most successful West Indies batsman.

Another exciting prospect is pint-sized Adrian Barath of Trinidad and Tobago, who impressed in the recent Champions League.

However, it will be interesting to see how 21-year old fast bowler Kemar Roach, who has reportedly broken the 150km/h barrier, performs on the juicy Brisbane track, especially if he bowls on the first morning today.
Taylor's bunny?

Pace bowler Jerome Taylor has dismissed Ponting nine times in international cricket (he jokingly refers to the Aussie skipper as his "bunny"). Their duel should be worth going miles to see.

Meanwhile, the tourists, whose ranks have been split following their senior players' industrial dispute (it has also resulted in their being seriously short of match practice), were buoyed with their captain Chris Gayle's announcement that he would play despite being jetlagged after his marathon trips back and forth to Jamaica where his mother suffered a heart ailment last week.

POSTSCRIPT:
Gayle, whose sartorial style is as flamboyant as his batting, yesterday explained to the media that his message on his Twitter page that he could not fly back to Brisbane from Jamaica because the pilot of his private jet reported on duty drunk was only a joke.

"It was nothing like that... I don't have a private jet," he guffawed.

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