The quality of the surface preparation was questioned by fans and previous players as a result of this contrast with Ganguly’s earlier remark about an even contest.
The Eden Gardens’ pitch has been the subject of controversy since the first Test match between South Africa and India. The surface has been widely criticised for giving bowlers too much help. In response to charges against the curator and the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), its president, Sourav Ganguly, has placed the blame on India’s team management rather than the ground crew.
Since the first session, bowlers with irregular bounce, sharp turn, and unpredictable movement have dominated the Kolkata Test, making batting very challenging and resulting in abnormally low totals for both teams. In the first three innings, neither team reached the 200-run milestone, and up to 24 wickets were lost before the last hour of Day 2.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan has criticised the Eden pitch as terrible, and Harbhajan Singh has said as much. “RIP Test cricket,” he said, blasting the circumstances. Interestingly, the ball showed unpredictable behaviour from the first over onwards, staying low one minute and leaping off a length the next. After receiving a great deal of criticism, Ganguly vehemently defended curator Sujan Mukherjee, emphasising that the surface was not his fault. The former captain disclosed that the Indian team’s management had explicitly asked for this kind of pitch.
“What the Indian camp want was the pitch. When you don’t water the pitch for four days, this is what occurs.
The responsibility cannot be placed on curator Sujan Mukherjee,” Ganguly told News18 Bangla.
Even we were surprised by how rapidly a wicket degraded: Morne Morkel
Interestingly, Bumrah claimed five wickets in the first innings as South Africa was bowled out for 159. Despite a valiant fifty from Temba Bavuma, South Africa collapsed for 153 in the third innings after India answered with 189, led by KL Rahul with 39. India had to chase 124, which was a difficult goal on this surface and, if accomplished, would be the highest successful Test chase at Eden.
The curator said a week prior to the Test that Gautam Gambhir and the team management had not requested a rank turner, which Ganguly’s remarks contradict. After Day 2, even Morne Morkel, the bowling coach for India, acknowledged that the team had not anticipated the pitch’s rapid degradation.
“Yeah, look, to be honest with you, even we didn’t expect a wicket to deteriorate so quickly. We all thought it was a good wicket when we watched it for the first couple of hours, so it did deteriorate quite quickly, which was unexpected,” Morkel said following the play on the second day.
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