KARACHI: Former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif feels ‘underprepared’ pitches, during the ongoing HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) are not providing exciting cricket for fans.
Talking to this correspondent, the former captain called for a more professional approach to make the PSL matches evenly contested and interesting.
“Nowhere in an event, two matches are played in a day on the same strip. To prepare good pitches, sufficient watering is a must followed by a long and good roll over the surface,” Rashid emphasised. “To complete this process at least two days are required. After watering and roll, the sunshine helps in making of a perfect batting strip which is good for such leagues.”
Elaborating the technicalities further, Rashid urged for alternate venues to give the ground staff sufficient time to prepare the pitches. “Water, which is poured upon the pitch, remains underneath while the surface gets drier. Also the alternate pitch is too close of the active strip hence batsmen do step on to it quite often. There must be enough distance between pitches if holding back to back games on the same venue is imperative,” he observed
The initial leg of this edition of the Pakistan Super League has been completed in Dubai where seven back to back matches were played.
The next set of matches will now be held in Sharjah followed by another series of games in Dubai before moving to Abu Dhabi.
“With this schedule, no way a proper pitch could be prepared,” said Rashid. “That’s why different venues are designated for an event with multiple games. This is one reason of lesser amount of runs being scored which is not good for T20 cricket.” he concluded.
Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2019