Team Shah Rukh planning to fly in Adelaide curator to fix Eden Gardens wicket

He may not be keen on openly talking about it, but The Indian Express today learnt through reliable sources close to Shah Rukh that the Bollywood superstar is quite upset with the way the Eden Gardens pitch behaved last evening.

In fact, SRK is now planning to fly in renowned Australian curator Les Burdett to let the pitch consultant take stock of the two-paced Kolkata track that caused yesterday’s low-scoring affair, disclosed Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president Prasun Mukherjee. The CAB chief was admittedly briefed about this development by Knight Riders co-owner Jay Mehta, husband of Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla.

“I told him (Jay Mehta) that we have no problems with that (apporaching Les Burdett). The pitch is being prepared by our local curators under the supervision of chief national Daljit Singh. The Australian pitch specialist, Daljit and our curators can jointly inspect the pitch and decide on the remedy,” Mukherjee told reporters.

Burdett, who is based out of Adelaide, was flown in last month by the BCCI for expert opinion on how to prepare pitches for Twenty20 cricket.

David Hussey starred with a match-winning 38 to guide the Sourav Ganguly-led Knight Riders to a five-wicket win over Hyderabad Deccan Chargers in yesterday’s low-scoring match. The two teams’ combinedly scored 222 runs, and Eden curator Kalyan Mitra is under the scanner.

The devilish Eden track hasn’t gone down well with the BCCI as well, with the IPL organisers instructing chief national curator Daljit Singh to fly down to Kolkata at the earliest. Daljit, who has been directed by the Board officials to attend to the Eden pitch at once, is expected to reachKolkata late this evening.

Speaking to The Indian Express before setting off for Kolkata, Daljit said from Chandigarh: “I have been told by the IPL committee and the BCCI officials to visit Kolkata at once. I saw the match on TV. Although the match was a great contest, the wicket wasn’t okay. I have worked with Eden’s curators before. We now want to jointly find out what’s wrong with the pitch and make amends before the next IPL match comes up there.”

Interestingly, while CAB president Mukherjee has given the thumbs up to the idea of approaching Aussie expert Burdett, Sourav Ganguly’s brother Snehasish, a top CAB functionary, is not keen with the plan to rope in an expert from “outside”.

CAB assistant secretary Snehasish Ganguly told this daily: “The CAB is self-sufficient in looking after the Eden pitch. We don’t quite need experts from outside as far as I am concerned. I am confident we will prepare a high-scoring wicket for the next match.”