Something Funny indeed

Well all of us are aware of the fate of the second test between the West Indies and England at Antigua, which was abandoned owing to a sandy pitch that got even more worse when the rains poured down. The two test matches have been able to raise eyebrows whatsoever. The first instance being that West Indies unexpectedly won the first test match and that too by a one sided innings. And not only that. West Indies bowled out England out for a partly score of 51, with six of the English batsmen being out for a duck and only Andrew Flintoff could manage to cross the double figure mark.

Had this been the performance by the West Indies team, it would not have made much news, for in the recent past they have been doing that regularly. The last time the West Indies hosted England, they were all out for a score of less than 100 on two occasions. One instance saw the West Indies crumble for a score of just 47, the match in which England's Mathew Hoggard took a hattrick. Then in the same series, the West Indies were all out for 94, which England won by 10 wickets. In that season, England beat the West Indies on 7 out of 8 tests, with one test being drawn (the match where Brian Lara scored 400*).

It is still not clear as to what was responsible for the English debacle in the first. Some blame it on the IPL. But, still I cannot figure out what had the IPL got to do with their debacle in that test. Anyway, coming to the second test, this was the first test that I ever saw where the pitch preparation was so bad. I wonder as to what on earth forced the curator of the pitch to go in for such irresponsible duties, where a pitch becomes so sandy. Had the curators predicted that there would be no rains absolutely and their hidden truth guilt would never ever be exposed?

Nothing can be ruled out in today's world of cricket. This was something similar to the Sydney test controversy in early 2008 where the onfield as well as the third umpire witnessed an eclipse which no other in the world could. Probably, the umpires had gone blind or had they forgotten the rules of the game of cricket is yet to be known. The situation is no different in the second test where a pitch not even suitable for gully cricket is being prepared. Might be that the curators were new to the job of preparing the pitch. This made me burst into laughter.