The need of the hour for Indian cricket is fast, hard and true wickets. Otherwise, the unhappy trend of the Indian team doing well at home but failing miserably abroad will continue. Fully aware of the problem, the pitches and grounds committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which met in Chennai on Saturday decided to tackle it head on.

Briefing reporters, former Indian captain K Srikkanth who heads the committee, said discussions at the meeting centred around the urgent need of changing the nature of wickets in the country. He said the pitches had to be prepared in such a way that they encouraged the pacemen with their bounce and also gave hope to the spinners on the last two days of a game. He said it was possible to prepare such wickets in India for there were qualified groundsmen. In any case, the trend of preparing tracks which turned prodigiously from the first day would have to go. It made for a sub standard cricket match and also led to the team faring miserably when they played abroad.

Srikkanth said the pitch preparation process was viewed by the committee on a long term basis. There could be no short term plans, he emphasized. He said BCCI president AC Muthiah was very keen on changing the nature of the wickets and had advocated that soil mechanics who were experts in the trade could be consulted on the matter.

Srikkanth said that as the scope of the committee also included facilities at the ground and available infrastructure the members would inspect the venues selected for the South African tour to this country in February-March next year and meet again in Mumbai on January 7 to review the situation.

Srikkanth said the pitch preparation process was viewed by the committee on a long term basis. There could be no short term plans, he emphasized. He said BCCI president AC Muthiah was very keen on changing the nature of the wickets and had advocated that soil mechanics who were experts in the trade could be consulted on the matter.

Srikkanth said that as the scope of the committee also included facilities at the ground and available infrastructure the members would inspect the venues selected for the South African tour to this country in February-March next year and meet again in Mumbai on January 7 to review the situation.

© CricInfo