Pitch doctoring will hinder progress of Bangladeshi game

Duncan Fletcher had a wry grin on his face when he inspected the pitch being used for today's first one-day international against Bangladesh here. Situated only eight feet away from the one on which his fast bowlers manhandled the same opponents a week ago, it bared little resemblance to the hard, grassy surface England played on in the second Test.

After England's emphatic 329-run win, the groundsman at Chittagong's M A Aziz Stadium was widely criticised for producing a pitch that gave England's pacemen so much assistance. And after looking at the brown, dead surface being used for this encounter, it appears those in Bangladeshi cricket who hold the view that the home side should do all they can to get conditions in their favour have won.

Though such an attitude should not be enough to prevent England winning this and the remaining two one-day internationals, in Dhaka on Monday and Wednesday, it is disappointing to see the home side doctoring pitches to suit their needs. To me, this approach not only contravenes the spirit of the game, it will also have a detrimental affect on the advancement of Bangladesh's side. If Test cricket's most recent addition is to make progress, they must learn to cope with the type of conditions encountered in the second Test, not run away from them.

This view may sound naïve, but I believe that it would be in the best interests of the game if groundsmen were told by the International Cricket Council to ignore requests made by the home side to produce a certain type of surface. Groundsmen should receive only one directive from their employers at the start of each season: to produce the best pitches they can.

Preparing a surface that generates a good game of cricket is difficult enough. When a groundsman is instructed to produce a sub-standard surface he compromises his position and increases the probability of a game not being the spectacle it could be.

Last summer's Test matches against South Africa at Trent Bridge and Headingley - where neither groundsman acted under instructions - proved that intriguing games can be played on poor pitches, but these instances should not become the norm. As a spectacle, The Oval provided the best pitch of the series. Not only did it produce a result, it also gave the players the perfect stage on which to display their talent.

England will have to get used to finding such conditions during the next seven weeks in Sri Lanka. Having witnessed that England's likeliest match-winners are their fast bowlers, Sri Lanka, whose attack is based around Muttiah Muralitharan, the world's leading spin bowler, will make it unlikely that Michael Vaughan's side will see green grass until the return home on 23 December.