Home games on unfamiliar surfaces for Bengaluru

OVER the last year and a bit, the surfaces at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium have undergone asilent revolution.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

Even though it’s de rigueur to call the strips great for batting, it hasn’t necessarily passed the smell or the eye test.Mo Bobat and Dinesh Karthik, two senior figures within the franchise, have spoken about this issue over the last 12 months. After the first few matches last year, Karthik suggested that the franchise would talk to the curators to find out why pitches were ‘challenging’ to bat on. “We will have a chat with him (curators),” he had said. “We trust him to do his job. So, this isn’t a pitch that’s helping the batters too much. It’s a challenging pitch. So that has been the case so far in both the games we have played.”