BCCI sorts out matters with pitches committee

In a damage repairing exercise, the Board of Control for Cricket in India sorted out things with the pitches and grounds committee at a meeting in Bangalore on Monday. The patch up was necessitated after the BCCI had asked the committee members to `stay away' from the Chinnaswamy stadium on the eve of the Bangalore Test.

After the Mumbai Test has been lost in three days, the BCCI secretary JY Lele issued a statement saying that the committee, which is headed by former Indian captain K Srikkanth, should have nothing to do with the pitch preparation at Bangalore. Naturally, the committee members were miffed and there was a stand off between the two. The committee, besides Srikkanth, consists of Gopal Bose, Surinder Khanna, G Kasturirangan, Dhiraj Parsana and Vinod Mathur. The controversy grew when it was made known that BCCI president AC Muthiah was unhappy as he had not been informed about the decision.

Following the Bangalore meeting it is gathered that things have been sorted out. So in effect, the committee will oversee the preparation of wickets for the five one-day Internationals between India and South Africa, beginning Thursday in Kochi.

Save for Gopal Bose, all members of the committee attended the meeting which was addressed by Muthiah and Lele. The meeting dwelt at length on the committee's ``role and responsibilities towards the preparation of grounds, pitches and infrastructural facilities.''

So at best an uneasy truce has been signed. But will things be the same again as far as the pitches committee is concerned? The committee has acquired a high profile aura about it, especially after the debacle in Australia, which magnified the role that benign Indian pitches played in that disastrous tour. Now when the committee had taken its responsibility of preparing sporting tracks very seriously, came this latest bungling by the BCCI. After all, the Indians lost the Bangalore Test by an even heavier margin. But then this kind of brazen and uncalled for interference by the Board is nothing new.