Cricket is a passion in india. The game is extremely popular and helps generate 60% òf all revenue worldwide. The game is a gift of the British rule over India for close to 190 years. India faces Austraila in a 4 test series this year. The first test was held in Pune. The Australians started the match as the underdogs. The Aussies have not beaten India in 13 Years and Steve Smith was aware of the Herculean task before him. The Indians, as per instructions of the board and the captain Virendra Kohli asked the curator to prepare a spinners pitch.
It was assumed that the Indian spinners would be able to exploit the wicket and get India home. It didn't happen that way as the Aussies won the toss and through this, they won the match
Match result
The match was over inside three days and the Indian team managed scores of just 105 and 107 to lose by 333 runs. The Aussies led by captain steve Smith who hit 109, led from the front. It was a victory after 13 years and the irony was that Lyon a spinner who had relatively poor record exploited the wicket and ended up by picking 12 wickets.
Report by umpires
The match referee and the umpires gave a report and the ICC realized that the pitch was substandard. A show cause notice was issued to the BCCI as to why a doctored wicket had been prepared.
The preparation of a underprepared wicket was taking the home advantage a bit too far. In any case, it boomeranged badly on the Indian team who after an unbeaten record of 19 test match had to bite the dust.
The curator of the Pune wicket claimed that he had prepared a sporting wicket but the BCCI rep who visited the stadium and inspected the wickets insisted on a rank turner.
Preparation of such a wicket is cheating the masses who pay good money to watch the test and when it's over in three days, the fans are not happy.
Future
There are still three tests to go and the Aussie captain is clear that the Indians will come back with a bang. The second test will be played at Bangalore and one hopes a similar substandard wicket is not prepared again. This will kill test cricket which is suffering from a lack of crowd support. The talking point was the failure of the Indian skipper Kohli who just managed scores of 0 and 6.
