BCCI scraps Grounds and Pitches Committee

Stung by the fiasco at the Ferozeshah Kotla which led to the abandonement of the fifth and final India-Sri Lanka ODI, the Cricket Board on Sunday disbanded its Grounds and Pitches Committee with immediate effect.

"The BCCI has disbanded its Grounds and Pitches Committee with immediate effect," a one-line statement issued by BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, who was present at the venue, said.

The decision to disband the five-member committee headed by Daljit Singh came hours after the final one dayer was called off because of a dangerous pitch. Apart from Daljit, other members of the panel are Dhiraj Parsana (west), PR Viswanathan (south), Rajiv Gokhale (central) and Rahul Das (east).

After India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and asked Sri Lanka to bat first, the visiting batsmen found themselves on a tricky track where the odd ball bounced alarmingly.

Sri Lankan opener Tillakaratne Dilshan was hurt by such a delivery from Ashish Nehra, which had him in pain and receiving on-field treatment. Veteran Sanath Jayasuriya was also at the receiving end of the poor pitch, sustaining many a blow on his upper arm and wrist.

The match was into its 24th over when Sri Lankan batsman Thilina Kandamby complained to the umpires and the match was eventually called off. The Kotla had drawn much flak for its slow and low nature in recent times with most of the Champions League matches being low-scoring affairs and the last ODI, between India and Australia on October 31, was also a low-scoring contest.

Ironically, it was only to address this problem that the Delhi and District Cricket Associated headed by senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley decided to relay the pitch.

The preparation of the pitch was done by its new curator Vijay Bahadur Mishra, who began the process on November 8 which left the organisers with nearly 50 days to ready the track for the match.

Jayasuriya joins Tendulkar

Jayasuriya made his international debut on December 26, 1989 against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

India remain a formidable side at home: Kumar Sangakkara

The series may already have been lost after our defeat on Friday, but we are really keen to finish this long tour with a win today in Delhi. I've been proud of the way our younger players have fought in this series and they deserve the final scoreline to be 2-3 rather than 1-4.

On Friday night, I thought we did really well with the bat to get 315. It was great to see Upul Tharanga scoring his seventh ODI hundred and his first since returning to the team this year. He has grabbed his opportunity at the top or the order and looked really classy.

The rest of the batting was able to bat around him and that ensured we got ourselves a very testing target. Unfortunately, although (Suranga) Lakmal and (Suraj) Randiv bowled well, there was not the back-up in the field that we needed.

Gautam (Gambhir) and (Virat) Kolhi did bat brilliantly and it was a great chase by India, but our fast bowlers needed to be more disciplined. I felt we should have defended the 316-run target and levelled the series.

Unfortunately, we were left to rue earlier opportunities to win, most obviously in Rajkot at the start of the series. Having done all the hard work to get on top of the run rate, we let ourselves down badly by not finishing off India. In Cuttack, too, we sacrificed a strong position.

The big positive is that we have had had so many debutants on this tour due to the never-ending stream of injuries suffered by our bowlers. Some of those youngsters have really stepped up in what have been very difficult conditions for the bowlers.

It is not easy for the bowlers here. The pitches are flat. The outfields are fast. The Indian batting is both strong and explosive. However, the likes of Welegedera, Randiv and Lakmal have put their hands up and shown lots of heart.

In general, while we will return on the losing side and we have performed below expectations, it has been at least pleasing that this has been the most competitive we have been in India since I made my debut. That shows we are still going forward as a team.

My counterpart, MS (Dhoni), will be justly very pleased with his side’s performance. While we were handicapped by injuries, India too lost both Dhoni and Yuvraj for some key games. However, their youngsters, like Kohli at Eden Gardens, really rose to the challenge.

This is a big positive for India. You need solid bench strength if you really aspire to being the best in the world consistently and India definitely have plenty of talent coming through. India remain a formidable side at home.

india win series 3-1

A dangerous pitch led to the abandonment of Sunday's fifth and final limited-overs international between India and Sri Lanka, leading to crowd unrest and immediate recriminations for Indian officials.

Sent in to bat first, Sri Lanka had crumbled to 83-5 on the difficult Kotla pitch before the third delivery of the 24th over, from India's rookie paceman Sudeep Tyagi, rose dangerously and flew past the face of batsman Thilina Kandamby.

It proved the last straw for Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who complained to match referee Alan Hurst and onfield umpires Marais Erasmus and Shavir Tarapore, and players left the field.

As discussions continued between match officials and local organizers outside the boundary, spectators shouted slogans and abuse at the organizers.

Baton-wielding police were called in to clear the stands of spectators, some of whom had vented their anger by smashing chairs. The teams were whisked away from the stadium before the abandonment was announced more than an hour after the suspension.

Later Sunday, confronted with mounting criticism, the Indian cricket board scrapped its pitches panel.

"The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has disbanded its grounds and pitches committee with immediate effect," cricket board secretary Narainswamy Srinivasan said in a statement.

Srinivasan did not say if the BCCI would take action against New Delhi's cricket association, but local organizing committee chief Arun Jetlie apologized to fans.

"We deeply regret and offer our sincere apologies, this is a serious matter that we will inquire," said Jetlie, president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) and a vice president of the Indian cricket board.

"We will definitely establish what went wrong, but at this stage we do not want to indulge in any blame game and speculation."

Jetlie, who praised the police for preventing spectator spill over, said the decision to call off the game was justified.

"The players' security was uppermost in our mind," he said.

The International Cricket Council was to hold discussions with Hurst about the abandonment.

Former India captains Bishan Singh Bedi and Dilip Vengsarkar slammed the DDCA for the fiasco, with Bedi urging strong action against officials.

"The DDCA has made a mess out of the pitch, they should own up the responsibility," said Bedi.

"I wonder how the organizers used a use a pitch for an international match when it had not even been used for domestic Ranji Trophy games."

Vengsarkar said the now-disbanded BCCI pitch panel was responsible.

"It's shameful that such a pitch was prepared for an international match," said Vengsarkar. "Some deliveries were rearing up even from good length."

Nearly two months ago, a one-day international between India and Australia was played on the newly laid Kotla pitch, which India won by seven wickets.

This is the second time and India-Sri Lanka one-dayer has been abandoned due to a dangerous pitch. In 1997, a limited-overs international in the central Indian city of Indore was stopped after just three overs.

The International Cricket Council then banned Indore from hosting any international match for two years.

On Sunday, steeply rising deliveries caused problems to the batsmen from the start and one such delivery from paceman Ashish Nehra struck opener Tillakaratne Dilshan on his elbow. The batsman was given onfield treatment before play resumed.

Failing to cope with the bounce, Sri Lanka slumped to 63-5 as pace ace Zaheer Khan claimed 2-31 from his eight overs, while debutant Tyagi got 1-15. Spinner Harbhajan Singh (1-12) claimed the fifth wicket.

Former Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya, who also featured in the abandoned Indore match 12 years ago, was his team's top-scorer with 31 off 51 balls.

India won the series 3-1

virat kohli first 100

Home » News England wrest control from SA with triple strike

Durban: England grabbed three wickets after tea to wrest control from South Africa on the first day of the second Test at Kingsmead on Saturday.

South Africa were 175 for five when bad light stopped play with 29 overs remaining to be bowled.

The host nation looked firmly in command when their two most experienced batsmen, captain Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, put together a third wicket stand of 150. But both batsmen were out for 75 in quick succession after tea

Sehwag batsman of the decade, says Pringle

London: Highly impressed with Virender Sehwag's pyrotechnics, former England cricketer Derek Pringle has rated the dashing Indian opener as the greatest batsman of the decade.

"Dashing openers have always been with us, and Chris Gayle may yet take violence against the new ball a step further, but nobody yet has managed to do it with the audacity and frequency of Sehwag," Pringle said.

"To many, the choice will appear controversial. Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Jacques Kallis, Sachin Tendulkar, have all excelled over the past 10 years. They all announced their brilliance in the 90s, so were discounted," he added.

The Delhi batsman, who has over 6,248 Test runs to his credit from 72 matches, has cracked two triple hundreds and four double centuries so far.

According to Pringle, Sehwag scores over other candidates Ricky Ponting and Kevin Pietersen over the way he had redefined the role he plays. "Statisticians and the government policy-makers trust figures, wise men, facts, but I'm going to apply another measure: that of redefining the role they play, something Virender Sehwag has done for opening the batting in Test matches," Pringle wrote in his column for 'The Telegraph'.

"While Ricky Ponting and Kevin Pietersen, the other candidates for best player of the decade, have not really changed perceptions as the Delhi-born Sehwag has," Pringle wrote