Indore: It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in Indore on 26 February when Team India assembled for their first practice session at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. Captain Rohit Sharma skipped the session and coach Rahul Dravid was completely in command of proceedings. Before he could give attention to the nets, Dravid was stationed near the pitch square with a team of the ground staff and inspected the pitches on the square and one strip in particular, the one being used for this fixture.
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The former India captain, engrossed in the discussion, instructed the curators as they went about sprinkling water evenly. Yes, evenly is the key word here. Post the water shower a light roller was employed and the drill continued for good thirty minutes before the cover was put on. The entire strip, under cover, baked under the sun before the protection came off in the evening hours for another sprinkle and another round of roller. And Dravid was around then too.
Pitch being used for the third India-Australia Test had some grass in the middle patch but as the days progressed, it was trimmed and one got the impression that the only purpose of having it there was to avoid the early crumble which would have happened for hours under the sun. Both covered and uncovered.
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It became drier with every ray of light hitting the surface and on the eve of the match, the pitch wore a completely different look from what it was on Sunday. The freshness evaporated and a typical sub-continent brown took centrestage. The little patches of grass, which did excite the visiting media contingent, disappeared and a rank turner was waiting to be dished out.
In these three days, Dravid was spotted near the 22 yards and did regular inspections when he was at the ground. The low bounce, which became a talking point as India crumbled on Day 1, was a concern a couple of days back too when the groundstaff did a bounce test on Monday evening. They watered the area generously then and did have the roller on but signs of things to come were evident that evening.
On speaking to people close to developments, it has come to notice that the hosts were offered three strips to choose from. One was the strip right next to the current one and was more on the Nagpur lines with selective areas being drier than rest. The second one was towards the Sunil Gavaskar Stand and was a proper “patta”.
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“Three strips were offered and one you see in the corner was a proper ‘patta’. Good for batting early on but the team didn’t choose that. There was another comparatively less dry pitch next to the current pitch. I mean it was dry but not across. Similar to Nagpur,” says an official close to the developments.
India opted for the driest of the lot and then further treatment was done in the last three days where it turned from fresh to brown in no time and became the low rank-turner which we are witnessing.
Unlike Nagpur, there was not a single instance where water was sprinkled unevenly on the strip and all efforts were directed towards making it a very dry and turning pitch.
“Ye waala dry tha but aur dry hua last 2-3 din mai. Pura ekdum rank-turner types. Wo patta pe khelte to run bhi bante aur turn bhi hota (This was a dry track and became drier in the last few days – a complete rank-turner. If they had gone for the other strip, there would have been runs and turn both),” adds the official.
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