By GS Vivek
The Eden Gardens is all decked up for the Test and the Indian team warmed up with a first practice session on Monday afternoon for the series against South Africa. Yes, South Africa. And not Sri Lanka.
The three-match series beginning November 16 will be a dummy run for the tough South Africa tour as far as the Indian team is concerned. And the Eden pitch is a testimony for that. The Indian team management, comprising of coach Ravi Shastri and skipper Virat Kohli has issued direction to the curators across the three venues --- Kolkata, Nagpur and Delhi --- that they want hard bouncy tracks against Sri Lanka.
The decision to play on these wickets is to help prepare the Indian batters for the tough South Africa tour, where pitches are expected to be hard, bouncy and with a tinge of green. The Eden pitch on Monday matched up to the team’s expectations.
Cheteshwar Pujara has already made it public that he will be treating this series as a preparatory series for the tough overseas tests lined up for Team India, and the Indian team management has helped develop that thought for the entire team. The bowlers too, will get a feel of the different line and lengths required in Cape Town, Centurion and Johannesburg, .
According to sources, the faster bowlers will be rotated through the three-match with Umesh Yadav, Mohd Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar expected to grab the new ball in the Kolkata Test.
The decision also means that it is unlikely that R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, both making a comeback to the team and now considered Test match specialists, will be getting dirt-track pitches in the series. The Indian team’s decision to experiment with the pitches might just provide that little zing to the series against Sri Lanka. Or should we say South Africa!