From tHe desk of tUsHAR ..

The pitch at the Ferozeshah Kotla has drawn plenty of flak in the recent past for being slow, low and unsuitable for strokeplay. But on Sunday, in front of a packed house, it was declared unsuitable for cricket itself.

The Sri Lankan visitors, having been put in to bat, had more than a few bruises to show as they reached 83 for five but when, in the 24th over, a 130-kmph half-tracker from debutant Sudeep Tyagi spat off the strip and exploded over a clueless Thilina Kandamby, the captains, coaches, curators, umpires and match officials got into a concerned huddle, before trooping off the field.

The final match of the India-Sri Lanka one-day series was first "suspended" at 11.40 am and then, an hour later, abandoned due to unsuitable playing conditions, sparking a near-riot in the stadium and a blame-game on the sidelines. It also resulted, a couple of hours later, in the disbanding of the BCCI's Pitches and Grounds Committee. And after a lengthy DDCA meeting, the association sent out a release, saying local curator Vijay Bahadur Mishra and Chetan Chauhan, who heads their grounds committee, had resigned.

The spectators were eventually shepherded out of the ground, after hundreds of fiberglass seats had been ripped off and thrown on to the field, already strewn with plastic bottles and other debris. The anger and the damage could probably have been much more had this not been an inconsequential match - India having already sealed the series 3-1.

A one-year international ban on the Kotla could follow as that is the minimum penalty for a first offence of this nature under ICC guidelines. The last time a one-dayer was abandoned due to an unplayable pitch was in Indore - in an India-Sri Lanka game in 1997. More recently at Antigua, a West Indies-England Test match was called off after less than 10 overs after the outfield was deemed unplayable. Both venues were handed one-year suspensions.

"The decision to abandon the match was taken by myself, in consultation with on-field umpires Marais Erasmus and Shavir Tarapore, and both captains as it was clear that the pitch had extremely variable bounce and was too dangerous for further play," ICC match referee Alan Hurst said in a statement. "Before abandoning the match, consideration was given to shifting the match to a secondary pitch. However, it was deemed impractical as the secondary pitch was not adequately prepared."

DDCA president Arun Jaitley apologised to the public. "It is a very serious matter and we will look into it," he said, adding that all gate money would be refunded. Jaitley refused to get drawn into a slanging match that was being played out beyond the boundary, where former curator Radhe Shyam was insisting that BCCI chief curator Daljit Singh be sacked following the fiasco.

Speaking in Pune, former BCCI president Sharad Pawar said, "What happened today at the Ferozeshah Kotla was a national embarrassment."

The Kotla pitch was relaid in April this year, when the entire square was dug up. Since then, the venue has hosted a few low-scoring Champions League T20 games, when it came under criticism from the captains.

During the last one-day international played here, between India and Australia in October, the track had disintegrated rapidly as India chased down 230 for a six-wicket win.

For this match, there was a debate two days ago on which of the two prepared tracks should be used. A decision was taken to go with the pitch on which the last one-dayer had been played, as the alternate had never been used in a match - they obviously wanted to avoid any nasty surprises.

While not all deliveries were darting around dangerously, there were a couple of patches just short of a good length, from where deliveries were either bouncing sharply or darting through at ankle height. This was caused by tufts of grass that had been left on the pitch and rolled into it so as to bind it, to compensate for how rapidly the track used for the India-Australia ODI in October had seemed to disintegrate. Sunil Gavaskar, in his pre-match analysis, called it a "hair-transplant pitch".

"We tested the two pitches using net bowlers and the bounce on this one seemed better. We didn't expect this," DDCA curator Mishra said later. He went on to accuse the Sri Lankans of "running away" as they had already lost five wickets by then, but all the evidence said otherwise.

Daljit Singh, the board's chief curator - and the man under whose guidance this surface was prepared - was not available for comments, while Chetan Chauhan said they would look into the matter. "We accept responsibility for this. Something obviously went very wrong," he said.

In a couple of hours, the board decided to disband its committee with immediate effect. "After the Ahmedabad Test match (which witnessed a high-scoring draw), BCCI president Shashank Manohar had called a meeting of the grounds committee and explained that they would be accountable from then on, that they couldn't keep pointing fingers at local curators. As they were responsible for this pitch, we felt it was best to dissolve the committee," Ratnakar Shetty, the board's chief administrative officer, told The Indian Express.

"We need sporting pitches in India, which is why the BCCI is spending so much money on it. From now on, every association will be accountable for their own pitches," Shetty added.

Sri Lankan team manager Brendon Kurruppu told The Indian Express that the dressing room was worried early in the innings itself, but had decided to play on in the hope that the pitch eased out. "There were 40-50,000 fans who had come to watch, so it was a hard decision. But it was also the right decision."