On to Ahmedabad

By ICF Staff
April 11 2005

As the ODI series moves to Sardar Patel stadium in the town of Motera near Ahmedabad, more of the same awaits the two teams: intense heat and a flat batting track.

India and its captain Sourav Ganguly have enjoyed a high degree of success here in the past.

Only two ODIs have been played at Motera in the 2000's and India won both. In the last match, India overtook a target of 325 set by the West Indies with more than 2 overs to spare, indicating that the toss may not play as big a role.

The average temperature in the city has been hovering around 35 degrees, and is expected to exceed 40 degrees during the match to make it a particularly torrid experience for bowlers. As if that wasn't enough, the curator has promised that the pitch is "full of runs" -- completely bald, and guaranteed not to break under the sun after regular watering.

In fact, part-time spinners have a better record in ODIs at the Sardar Patel ground than regular bowlers, which makes India's choice of Balaji or Agarkar in place of Pathan a moot one. Murali Kartik's left arm spin may well be the better choice to keep the run rate down.

Pakistan, for its part, is unlikely to disturb the winning combination from the previous game.

The more interesting question is whether the batsmen in the Indian lineup who have been under-achievers so far -- Tendulkar, Ganguly, Yuvraj, and Kaif -- will be able to take advantage of the perfect batting conditions here. The only batsmen who have fired for India so far have been Sehwag and Dravid, both of whom failed in the previous match. Wicketkeeper Dhoni will be the entertaining wildcard, with his aggressive and hard hitting style.

Ganguly, who has had to part with 70% of his match fee after a behind-schedule over rate by his team in the last ODI, has a particularly good record at matches played on this ground and will look to finally end his dry spell.

With the series currently poised at 2-1 in India's favor, and rumors swirling over the cliffhanger nature of past ODI series in India -- 7 of the last 8 series in the country have gone down to the wire with the only exception being minnows Zimbabwe -- the sold-out crowd at Sardar Patel stadium will expect to see the Indians going all out to win this one. After paying extravagant prices to spend a day out braving extreme heat and needlessly overboard security arrangements, they should get nothing else.