Stress on green could make it a colourful affair

MUMBAI: The dominant colour at the Wankhede is green and it has nothing to do with a coat of paint. What caught the attention of the players, including the two skippers Gautam Gambhir and Mohammad Kaif and their key personnel, was the generous tinge of grass that is holding the wicket on which the final of the Ranji Trophy will be played.

After years of changing the nature of the wicket to suit the home skipper; be it Mumbai or India, curator Sudhir Naik has had a field day this time around.

“The BCCI has instructed me to keep a healthy layer of grass on the wicket. Playing the finals and semifinals at neutral venues means I don’t have to work towards providing the home team with an advantage,” Naik said.

Incidentally, this game will be the first at a neutral venue since the 1996-97 final between a Mumbai and Delhi that was hosted at Gwalior under lights and with the white ball.

Talking about the wicket at the Wankhede, Kaif said, “This is the kind of wicket on which youngsters need to be groomed. Even from the under-13 level onwards such wickets that produce healthy bounce and are sporting must be introduced. Domestic players aren’t used to playing on wickets with grass and assist movement and that’s why the teams found it difficult to score runs in the semifinals.”

Delhi’s bowling coach and former seamer Manoj Prabhakar puts it across simply. “This is a perfect wicket for cricket. Abhi pata chalega kisme hai dum. A big score or a century on this wicket, especially on the first day should be rated very highly. Finally, we have got a wicket that is deserving of a final match,” Prabhakar said.

“It will be a challenge for the bowlers too as the grass on the wicket will provide movement and it will test the control and ability of the quicks. On this wicket it is not about running in and bowling fast, but it is more about control, accuracy and skills. If we bowl on the first day and my bowlers stick to a plan, I won’t be surprised if the opposition is bowled out on the first day,” the former Test bowler said.

Naik too agrees that if the pacemen get it right, it will be a severe test of skill and temperament for the batsmen in the first innings.

Suresh Raina believes that the wicket will provide a good contest between bat and ball. “It looks like a good wicket and should provide the faster bowlers with some bounce and movement. It will be great to get a big score in this final.”

For Aakash Chopra, who has spent a good deal of his cricketing career in the county circuit in England, the wicket holds no devils in it. “This wicket will hold together well as there is a grass on it. I am for neutral venues as it puts both sides on even keel. My guess is this strip will ease out as the match progresses and batting well in the first innings is crucial.”

Naik thinks the team that wins the toss will bowl first. Vijay Dahiya, the Delhi coach revealed his cards. “If the wicket stays this way I we would like to bowl first.”

Both skippers incidentally enquired with Naik if any more grass will be shaved off and the curators’ replay was a firm ‘no’.

Teams (from)
Delhi: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Aakash Chopra, Shikhar Dhawan, Mithun Manhas, Chetanya Nanda, Amit Bhandari, Parvinder Awana, Rajat Bhatia, Puneet Bisht (wk), Sumit Narwal, Pradeep Sangwan, Narender Singh, Gaurav Chhabra, Mayank Tehlan, Rahul Sanghvi

Uttar Pradesh: Mohd Kaif (capt.), Suresh Raina, Rohit Prakash Srivastava, Tanmay Srivastava, Piyush Chawla, Ravikant Shukla, Mohd Amir Khan (wk), Praveen Kumar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Praveen Gupta, Sudeep Tyagi, Rahat Elahi, Tahir Abbas, Parvinder Singh, Mohd Abid Khan.