Pitch imperfect: Can India and Pakistan match hype and anticipation around the game expected to promote cricket in the US?
economictimes.indiatimes.comDistance is a curious thing. In cricket, 22 yards is the one most spoken about, because it’s the length of the pitch. In geography, when India play Pakistan, even that is shortened, given the contentious border the two countries share.
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Now take these two teams and add another distance, that of entire oceans and continents, and drop them in — much like the authorities have the pitches, but more on that in a minute — and you create an intersection in which so much is possible. In the United States, these two teams could match the building anticipation and produce something so dazzling, rare and unexpected, like a Bird of Paradise blooming where it shouldn’t even exist, but equally, they might crash and burn.
PITCH IMPERFECT And to this end, all eyes will be on the pitch. There has been excessive seam movement and bounce, and even this bounce has been variable enough to lead to batsmen taking body blows.
And the bowlers in the mix here are lethal on perfectly good surfaces, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Siraj and even Hardik Pandya are awkward. But when Shaheen Shah Afridi gets into his action, the curve of his spine is like a long bow loading, rather than a mere mortal sending down a ball. Mohammad Amir, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf all strive to crank up the pace, and India’s batsmen will know that this is not a time to plonk
