Pitch therapy

The Gujarat State Fertiliser Corporation compound is not the most likely place to find one of India's prettiest cricket grounds. But there it is, tucked away in sylvan anonymity, off the Vadodara-Ahmedabad Highway, a lovely patch of green that is at the heart of the revival of Baroda cricket.

Make no mistake, it is a not a cricket stadium but a cricket ground, just like the one at the Bombay Gymkhana where C K Nayudu and Douglas Jardine went out to toss for India's first home-Test in 1933. A few hundred cricket enthusiasts stood around the edge of the boundary cheering their heroes and it's not hard to imagine motorists on the adjoining roads pulling up for an unscheduled halt and winding their windows down to watch Nayudu unleash a ferocious square-cut.

Half a day spent at the GSFC ground is enough to convince you that the heart of Indian cricket is still in the right place. Baroda are playing Punjab in the Ranji semi-final. There are no TV cameras, and not a laptop in sight. There are no painted faces, no Mexican waves, no sponsor-placards, and no contrived enthusiasm. About 500 people, some of whom have taken the day off, have travelled to the outskirts of the city to enjoy a day of cricket - as opposed to creating a spectacle which is the hip thing to do nowadays. They are knowledgeable - they know an under-edge from a late cut - and though they wildly cheer the home-team, they aren't blindly partisan. Zaheer Khan is the local hero but Harbhajan Singh gets a rousing reception when he comes on to bowl in the afternoon.

The most heartwarming sight though, is the pitch. It's the second day of the match, but the tinge of green has still not disappeared. Zaheer Khan and Rakesh Patel make the ball rise above waist-height all morning, but the pitch hides nothing. You get what you see. The bounce is even and the pace is true. It will reward a fast bowler's toil, and skilled batsmen will get good value for their strokes. V V S Laxman's Hyderabad lost to Baroda in the quarters this year and Zaheer Khan, bowling once again with the nip and zest everyone thought he had lost, took 10. But Laxman scored a century and an unbeaten 53 and called it ideal preparation for taking on Heath Streak.

It's no fluke that Baroda are in the Ranji finals for the second successive year. They have four pace bowlers in their ranks and have the luxury of being able to keep Irfan Khan Pathan Jr, one of India's bright new bowling talents, on the bench. It's a pity that the final is being played at the Railways ground in Delhi, where batsmen can plonk their front foot forward and grind away for two days. It was a shame that the Ranji Trophy semi-final between Railways and Bengal was decided on first-innings lead. Javagal Srinath, who has bowled for a lifetime on such heartbreakers, was right on target when he pointed the finger at batsman-captains. "What does one do," he asked with a resigned shrug at a meet-the-press function last month, "if the captain - most of the time the captain is a batsman - doesn't want a sporting wicket?"

But there are encouraging signs of change. The pitches for the Challenger Trophy in Bangalore were among the liveliest seen in India in recent memory. Mohali has always been kind to pace bowlers. And now this little paradise in Vadodara. Pitch improvemnt is a small movement in India still, but it's good to know that it's gathering pace.