MCC rejects Sachin Tendulkar's two-pitch suggestion for Ranji Trophy
It is not often that the cricketing fraternity does not agree with suggestions given by batting legend Sachin Tendulkar but the MCC's World Cricket Committee rejected one of his ideas today.
A few days back Tendulkar had suggested using two pitches for Ranji Trophy games so that Indian players can get used playing on different kind of strips but a few members of the committee felt it devalued the sport.
"First class cricket is about playing competitive (cricket), challenging yourself. It (playing on two pitches) will be like lessening the importance of first class cricket. That is what the committee felt," Marylebone Cricket Club's World Cricket Committee member and former Pakistan captain Rameez Raja was quoted by PTI.
Former England captain and the chairman of the Committee Mike Brearley also echoed the same sentiment as Raja. "We talked about that too. We talked about the conflict between using first-class matches as training and the fact that they are proper games of cricket in a proper competition, proper feeling that you're in a real match. Those two things can be in conflict," said Brearley.
"I personally think the committee would have probably said the same, that we felt that (the idea of Tendulkar) went too far in turning first class cricket into mere practice matches for international cricket," he said.
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The former skippers who have played top flight cricket for a long time were reacting to Tendulkar’s words which he said at an event in New Delhi recently. The Indian batting icon had proposed that every Ranji game should be played on two different tracks to help prepare the Test team better for tours outside the country.
He also suggested the use of two balls (a Kookaburra and an SG ball) in two innings so as to nullify a curator designing a pitch for suitability and negate the toss factor.
"Let us have the first innings on a green top with kookaburra balls which would give openers a challenge. Even bowlers will have something. Our spinners will also learn how to bowl with kookaburra on green tops," Tendulkar had said.
"Now let there be a pitch adjacent to the green top which would be a rank turner. Now the second innings will be played on that track with the SG Test ball which would also help our batsmen play against quality spin bowling," he had said.
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