Pitches that kill Test cricket

The second cricket test match between Sri Lanka and India at the Sinhalese Sports Club, Colombo( SSC) was a farce of a test match. Have a couple of more pitches like this in every test playing country and it is a sure shot recipe for killing the test cricket. As such the advent of one day cricket and T-20 have shifted the viewership and interest away from test cricket. Hence it becomes imperative that sporting pitches are designed for test cricket so that connoisseurs of the game could see an even and fair contest between bat and ball.

Pitches like SSC where a total of close to 1500 runs were scored for just 17 wickets will drive even the ardent fans away from test cricket. Three centuries( Mahela Jayawardana,Paranavitana and Raina), Two double hundreds( Sangakara and Tendulkar) and Sewag's 99 are scores which were not surprising in this pitch. What would make news in this kind of pitch is when a batsman fails to score a century and in that way Dravid and Laxman made the headlines. The SSC pitch can write obituaries for many a bowler.

Many construe cricket as a batsmen's game and most rules are bent in favour of batsmen. On top of that if one comes across pitches like this, it is the ultimate death knell for the bowlers. Unless the respective cricket Boards ensure that strict orders are given to the groundsmen to make pitches which are conducive to good contest, it won't be far before we see the last of test matches.