Sachin Tendulkar's dual-pitch suggestion will devalue First-Class cricket, says MCC

Mumbai: The radical suggestion of cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar to use two pitches in Ranji Trophy matches to enable Indian players get used to differing playing surfaces has not found favour with the Marylebone Cricket Club’s World Cricket Committee, which felt it devalued the game. “First-Class cricket is about playing competitive (cricket), challenging yourself. It (playing on two pitches) will be like lessening the importance of First-Class cricket. That is what the committee felt,” said committee member and former Pakistan captain Rameez Raja at a media conference after the panel’s two-day meeting in Mumbai. [caption id=“attachment_3144714” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sachin Tendulkar had earlier suggested that two different pitches should be used in Ranji Trophy matches. Getty Images[/caption] Committee chairman and former England skipper Mike Brearley echoed the same view. “We talked about that too. We talked about the conflict between using First-Class matches as training and the fact that they are proper games of cricket in a proper competition, proper feeling that you’re in a real match. Those two things can be in conflict,” said Brearley. “I personally think the committee would have probably said the same, that we felt that (the idea of Tendulkar) went too far in turning First-Class cricket into mere practice matches for international cricket,” he added. Both Raja and Brearley were reacting to the idea put forth by Tendulkar at a recent event in New Delhi. Tendulkar had suggested that every Ranji Trophy game should be played on two different pitches to prepare a better Test team for overseas assignments. He also wanted two balls (a kookaburra and a SG ball) to be used in two innings of a match which he reasoned would take a curator preparing designer pitches out of the equation and also would nullify the toss factor. “Let us have the first innings on a green top with kookaburra balls which would give openers a challenge. Even bowlers will have something. Our spinners will also learn how to bowl with kookaburra on green tops,” Tendulkar had said. “Now let there be a pitch adjacent to the green top which would be a rank turner. Now the second innings will be played on that track with the SG Test ball which would also help our batsmen play against quality spin bowling,” he had said.