India vs Australia: Pitch for third ODI will be batting friendly but assist wrist spinners, says curator

Indore: India’s newest spin twins Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal could be the only bowlers making an impact on a Holkar Stadium track that promises to be a belter, according to its curator Samandar Singh Chauhan. The Madhya Pradesh CA curator Chauhan said the pitch won’t crumble, so only wrist spinners will be able to make impact while a bigger total can be expected after 281 and 252 scored by the home team in Chennai and Kolkata respectively. [caption id=“attachment_4055371” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Yuzvendra Chahal (C) and Kuldeep Yadav (L) have emerged as India’s new dynamic spin pair. AFP[/caption] “We have used black cotton soil, brought from different parts of Madhya Pradesh. In this weather, it won’t crumble and it won’t be very dry. It has capacity to hold water but it will be good for the wrist spinners,” Chauhan said. The Australian batsmen have struggled against both chinaman Yadav and Chahal in the first few matches with the former becoming only the third Indian take a hat-trick in ODIs. Wrist spinners are not dependant on pitch for good performance like off-spinners but if they get bounce they become more lethal. “We had used this pitch for a two-day match between the players of our Ranji players. Ninety overs were bowled on both days on September 7 & 8 and good runs were scored. It should be a high scoring game,” Chauhan added. Holkar stadium has been a happy hunting ground for Indian batsmen as Virender Sehwag had struck his career-best ODI score of 219 against the West Indies in December 2011. India captain Virat Kohli had hit a double hundred (211) against New Zealand in the first innings of the third Test in Indore last year and Ajinkya Rahane had scored 188 in the same innings. Before the start of the series, it was said that 300-plus score would be norm but in the first two matches have not seen that happening. The city has also been experiencing rain in the last few days. There is forecast of sporadic showers during the next two days. The ground was kept under cover after a heavy downpour from last midnight till Friday afternoon. However, a strong drainage system in place means that a ground staff of 80 people can get the field ready for play in an hour even after a strong spell of rain. “We are equipped with three super soppers, 12 sump well — each having 60-feet deep boring and 48 100-feet borewells to make the ground ready,” Chauhan, who has been associated with MPCA for the last 22 years, said. The first match in Chennai was a truncated affair and in Kolkata as well the rain had interrupted the match for a brief period. The MPCA officials indicated that if there is bright sunshine on Sunday, batting first will be the order of the day whichever skipper wins the toss.