Flat Pitches and Mahelanagakara Rants

Mahela Jaywardhena feels that the SSC pitch was good to bat on and due to the weaker bowling attacks on both sides, the run glutton continued on SSC.

He feels batting on such tracks is challenging and its not boring.

Well he is right. He has got 11 of his 28 hundreds on this ground which is more than Sir Don had on MCG.  No modern day greats of last 50 years have had such an “awesome” record on a single ground. The question is that most of the batting and bowling records on a single grounds are on the name of Sri Lankans. In bowling it would be Sir Muttiah Muralitharan and in batting it would be either rat Sangakara or Sir Mahela Jayawardhene.

The same stuff does not translate in that many victories as expected for the Sri Lankans in the recent years. Of course they have 61 wins to 69 losses, but 23 of them are against Zim and BD, so they have 38 wins in 28 years of their Test Cricket.

Ok enough rants about them.

The point is they don’t feel embarrassed on lifeless pitches like in SSC. Mahela is famous for batting big on lifeless pitches. He made 275 in another rubbish pitch at Motera last year, the only Test SL did not lose in that series.

Most of the bloggers feel that its not just SL who make lifeless pitches. Pakistan made them too when they used to have cricket played in their country. India have a couple of them in Ahmedabad and Bangalore.  SL have them everywhere. WI have it in Antigua, England have it at Lord’s and Cardiff.  But none of the batsmen from the countries except SL enjoy or justify the boring pitches which are full of runs and nothing for bowlers. We don’t see curators defending their creation every where blaming the bowling attacks.

Mahela has an expert view on everything. Yesterday there was a column in cricinfo where he said that India is not playing like a # 1 team. Sangakara is repeatedly ranting on need for “Fair FTP”. Murali feels Randiv and Mendis bowled well on SSC track (each of them went over 150 runs). I mean cmon have the guts to call spade a spade. Say that the SL pitches are killing the Test cricket. You don’t have to say that batting on such pitches is fun or challenging.  And as SP pointed out, the exhilaration showed by Mahelangakara at SSC was as if they have hit 200s on a pitch like 2006 series when none except Rahul Dravid crossed 50s in Wset Indies.

And in India no spinner is half as good as Anil Kumble even if we combine the prowess of Bhajji, IPL Ojha and Amit Mishra. Mishra got a chance and he has made a 100 in 150 balls.  Ojha is 2/78, his best figures in the series. Whats more Sehwag is more economical than this 2 supposed new gen spinners.