Neutral pitches in focus; Karnataka sort out Uthappa-Gautam quandary

Pitch imperfect? The message from the BCCI may have been on uniformity in pitch preparation, but doubts over the neutral-venues concept continued to be raised after the opening round of the Ranji Trophy. The Mumbai-Tamil Nadu opener in Lahli, a marquee clash in Group A, finished in a little over two days, with 34 out of the 38 wickets to fall taken by the fast bowlers.

“It was basically a very green pitch,” Abhishek Nayar, who made an unbeaten 45 to help Mumbai scrape home by two wickets, told ESPNcricinfo after the game. “Initially, there was a very thick covering of grass that made it very tough for stroke-play. What made things more difficult was the outfield was super slow, so getting boundaries was not easy.”

It wasn’t too different in Ranchi, where Chhattisgarh beat Tripura by nine wickets. While Yashpal Singh, Tripura’s most experienced batsmen, termed it a “rubbish pitch”, Sulakshan Kulkarni, Chhattisgarh’s head coach, also wasn’t pleased with the surface despite his side recording a historic win. “The wicket was up and down right from the start,” he said. “You are supposed to have consistent bounce to begin with, but here it was scooting low and shooting up right from the start. There wasn’t a blade of grass. Surely better wickets can be prepared. What’s the use of playing on these kind of surfaces even after adopting neutral venues?”

Maharashtra’s loss to Jharkhand at the Karnail Singh …

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