Curator should know local weather, soil texture: BCCI Curator Asish Bhowmick

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: The East Zone curator of the BCCI Asish Bhowmick is now in Guwahati to supervise a curator workshop organized by the Assam Cricket Association. On the sideline of the workshop he spoke to The Sentinel for a while. Here is the excerpt.

TS: Tell us about the ongoing curator’s workshop.

Bhowmick: Actually it’s a workshop for learning the basics of pitch and ground preparations. It’s a vast course. However, within BCCI’s guidelines we’re trying to provide all basics for preparing good wickets and grounds.

TS: Can you highlight a little more about the course?

Bhowmick: Look, the job of curator is a very critical one. The person concerned must have knowledge not only about the game but also its other areas like soil condition of the ground, weather condition of areas etc as all these have direct bearings on the behaviour of the wicket. So we’re trying to give basic ideas on every area to the participants of this workshop.

TS: So it’s a very challenging job?

Bhowmick: Absolutely. You must have proper ideas on the weather condition, nature of soil etc of the area where you are working to prepare a new wicket or you’re on the job of its upkeep. The distance between Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati and a cricket ground in Shillong is hardly 90-100 km, but the behaviour of pitches will not be same at all because of different weather conditions and soil texture. So unless you know such factors and that too, in a very proper way, it would be almost impossible for you to prepare a good wicket.

TS: What is a good cricket wicket?

Bhowmick: The soil should be hard and good. The bounces would not be uneven and during the days’ matches the pitch would deteriorate steadily, not all of a sudden.

TS: Do different formats of the game demand different nature of wickets?

Bhowmick: Look, our main job is to provide good wickets to both the teams. We work keeping only this in mind. Yes, I can say that the preparation of wickets for days’ matches is more challenging than that of limited over or T20 matches, because of the time factor.

TS: Is it possible to read the behaviour of a wicket by simply watching it?

Bhowmick: I don’t feel so. You can get a little idea about the bounce, but to know the possible behaviour of the wickets you have to take into consideration the local weather, the performance of the teams on the same wicket earlier and the like.

TS: What is the present state of curators in the Northeast?

Bhowmick: We need more curators in the Northeast. Last year, six new teams from the region joined in the domestic cricket. You may have good curators in the capital city, but the scenario is not the same at the district level where you equally need good wickets as nowadays more and more cricketers keep coming from rural areas. So, I feel Assam is doing a good job by organizing such a workshop, and we need similar workshops in the other states of the Northeast.

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