Pitch doctor

The Nagpur pitch, they say, is going to be a sporting one. Well, they mostly always say that. The pertinent point is whether it will be flat like it tends to be or will it offer a result. I get the feeling it won't matter, with the nature of the two teams that approach it. It is hard to see a draw being the outcome. Maybe that is the product of too much expectation, but both teams want to win too badly to go for a draw. And unless the Indian batsmen can pull soemthing out of their blue caps, they won't be batting so spectacularly as to pulverise the Aussies. I hope I am proved wrong.

But it is interesting to note the comments of the curator, and more importantly the President of the VCA. The latter is tom-toming the faurness of a sporting pitch. While that may be true in itself, his comments on altering the pitch even slightly to favour the home team are strange.
"I have got no instructions from either the BCCI or the Indian team management. Even if I do, I am not going to oblige them,"...."(the pitch)that would have enough bounce so as to encourage quicker bowlers and also improve strokeplay of batsmen".

I guess this brings up the good ol debate on whether a host team can make picthes suited to its strengths, and home advantage and all that. But for me that is one of the most unique aspects of cricket, and something that gives us all such varied and different matches so often. There is absolutely nothing wrong with making pitches that are more suited to Indian styles. You will always find a spinning track in Chennai, a bouncy one at Perth and a swinging one at Dunedin. As long as the advantage is not stretched to unfair extremes, and through underhand means, I don't see the problem.

In addition, he outrightly criticised the previous two pitches.
"Those were very poor wickets," and "if you are a cricket lover, you want the best team to win, and not your home team at the cost of quality cricket."
That is such crap. Every Australian would have enjoyed the cricket in those two tests, and not just because they won the first one. Is he actually implying either of the first 2 Tests were not 'quality cricket'??? For heaven's sake.