Trivandrum: When India and England clash in a Group B match at Bangalore on Sunday, the ICC and BCCI administrators will be hoping that the cricket played at the centre negates the negative publicity that has haunted this fixture.
Initially scheduled to be played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, the match was at the centre of controversy for a good couple of weeks. The ICC ground inspection team found the Eden unfit to host the match and in a bid to keep the game in Kolkata, even the who's who of Indian politics got involved, trying to put pressure on the International governing body through their contacts in the Indian Board.
However, the ICC stuck to its guns and the match was moved to the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore. But trouble followed the change all the way down to the sunny South.
Earlier this week, as fans queued up outside the ground to get tickets for the game, a mini-stampede broke out, prompting police to lathi charge. There were far too less tickets on offer for the general public, with Karnataka Cricket Association blaming ‘quota allocation pressures’. The scene got even uglier through the day as allegations cropped up, that top officials of the KCA and even policemen were giving away tickets at exorbitant prices.
With all the bad press associated with this fixture so far, one just hopes that the players are not affected and give us a game of cricket worth remembering.
Both India and England have been in prime form of late and could give us a real nail-biter. Having won their opening Group games against Bangladesh and the Netherlands respectively, the winner in this match will be in prime position to go through to the quarter-finals.
Having played just the one specialist spinner in Harbhajan Singh against Bangladesh, India might look to have an additional slow bowling option against the Three Lions. The inclusion of either Piyush Chawla or Ravichandran Ashwin would mean that S Sreesanth would go out of the side.
But with dew likely to be an issue while bowling second, MS Dhoni and Gary Kirsten might decide to rely on part-timers Suresh Raina (Yuvraj Singh unlikely to play with a small niggle) and Yusuf Pathan to provide the fifth bowling option. In which case, a three-prong fast bowling attack led by Zaheer Khan and featuring Sreesanth/Nehra and Munaf Patel, will have to do a better job than they did in Mirpur.
Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Strauss opening the batting for England, will relish the prospect of eating into this trio of seamers. But they will have to be cautious to not throw away good starts, especially if there is some swing on offer.
The match in the end might come down to which of the two spinners, Graeme Swann or Harbhajan, has a better outing. Both these world-class performers will be lethal during the middle overs.
Prediction: India to edge England as Swann shines, but without much help from the other bowlers.
Prediction: India to edge England as Swann shines, but without much help from the other bowlers.
