The Kotla wicket has become the talk of the town after it killed the very essence of T20 cricket with all low-scoring matches.

By Chandraboli Mitra

The pitch has come in for sharp criticism from all quarters since the Airtel Champions League Twenty20 matches started, with most of the team captains as well as the cricketing experts stating their disappointment.

As the wicket has failed to produce any high-scoring match so far, Radhe Shyam, who had looked after the Kotla pitch for a number of years now, expressed his displeasure over the surface.

Claiming that he had given the pitch to Daljit Singh (chief of the BCCI's pitches and grounds committee) in the month of April itself, Radhe Shyam today asked the question ‘Why has Delhi called him?'

"Daljit has shaved off the grass completely (about 10 mm), when he himself instructs everyone not to cut the grass beyond six mm. And on top of that he hammered the pitch and then on the day of the match he also watered it," alleged the 73-year-old Radhe Shayam.

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He further added, "Daljit asked for the expensive imported grass, which the DDCA provided him. In fact, he was supplied with the best soil in the country, which is 70 plusearth but I can't understand what has gone wrong."

The curator also pointed out that the newly-laid pitch is also lower than the area around it, which is completely wrong.

"This ground is lower than the area around it and hence, after a month it will go down, when the season will begin and then there will be a need to lay a new pitch again after a year."

A new pitch was laid in Kotla four years back in 2005 during the India-Pakistan one-dayer, when Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf came visiting and since then the wicket has been made over and over again a few times in the last four years.

Crores of rupees have been spent during this period but Delhi's Ferozshah Kotla is yet to receive a bouncy and a fast wicket that it has been waiting for years now.

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"Daljit had promised to lay the fastest and bounciest wicket in the country here and the way the money has been spent and the raw materials supplied, this ground should have been by now one of the fastest in the country," said Radhe Shyam.

But when Daljit Singh was asked about all this, he simply rubbished all allegations, saying, "People don't know about anything and they just talk. Since IPL was shifted out of India to South Africa earlier this year, we got some time and thought of laying a good wicket. That is the reason why a new surface has been used."

"In the first year a new pitch is always slow. Wait till it matures a bit and there is no doubt that it will improve. You must take the example of Hyderabad pitch, which also took time to mature and now look how well it has started behaving." Daljit said in his defence.

"On the very third day, the bounce is much better and it is for everyone to see," concluded Daljit.

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