It must be a wicket fit for cricket

Elmo Rodrigopulle

WICKET: That the First Test between South Africa and Sri Lanka went into almost tea on the final day, speaks volumes for the wonderful wicket that was prepared at the SSC.

It is wickets of this nature that keeps interest alive and brings the all-important spectators to the game. If a Test ends in two and three days, like is now happening in England, where Pakistan is capitulating, it becomes a loss to the sponsors, the TV people, the caterers and so many others.

A good and fair wicket, makes the batsmen and the bowlers give of their best to make runs and to capture wickets.

A crumbling wicket will only allow the bowlers to grab wickets without making much effort, while the batsmen are not allowed to play their natural strokes.

That the South Africans collapsed in the first two sessions on the first day was due to utterly irresponsible batting. True the wicket was a bit lively early on because of the moisture, but had the South African batsmen applied themselves, they may have salvaged a draw instead of being second.

The wicket although being on the slow side, got better with each day, and with the SA batsmen turning in a better performance, the Lankan bowlers had to fight for the wickets.

There was a game at the P. Sara Stadium, not so long ago that had to be called off because of a very poor wicket. That is now a thing of the past and the South Africans and Sri Lankan cricketers would be looking for a wicket that would be fair to both teams.

It is customary for the wicket to be prepared to favour the home team. Not many curators would want to admit this, but that is how it goes. It is nice to have Test cricket back at the P. Sara Stadium which is the ground of the Tamil Union. The Oval when it was then known saw the legends of the game performing on this hallowed turf.

To name a few were the great Sir Donald Bradman, the terrible Ws - Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, Sir Garfield Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Keith Miller, Peter May and Colin Cowdrey and our own Mahadevan Sathasivam, Ivers Gunasekera and F. C. de Saram to name a few.

The Tamil Union did right to honour their great cricketers by naming stands after them. The Sathasivam and the Sathi Coomaraswamy stands. They richly deserve the honour. The new one to come up is the Tryphon Mirando stand.