Eden: Not quite a walk in the garden

Two-paced pitch and lower average scores in first innings make Kolkata a tougher venue for batters

- Somshuvra Laha

Scorecards suggest there have been no close matches at Eden Gardens in this World Cup. But Virat Kohli — who had to summon every ounce of his skill and patience to carve his 49th hundred against South Africa here — will be the first to disagree. Playing through the line isn’t a long-term option on this pitch. Neither is attacking in the middle overs. So what do South Africa and Australia, seemingly light on spin, have to do on a pitch that offers appreciable turn, that too pretty early?

Build the innings

Win the toss, bat first, and hopefully win. Bangladesh may not admit they passed up the opportunity against Pakistan, but apart from them all other first-time batters— Netherlands, India and England — have worked out results in their favour at Eden Gardens. This isn’t a belter by any stretch of imagination. Seamers get to move the ball around at the start and spinners extract an average of 2.5° turn during the powerplays. Unlike other grounds, there isn’t much bang for buck when it comes to drives. But the square boundaries are smaller (around 65m on both sides), making pull, sweep and cut shots extremely effective.

Pace off the pitch comes down drastically though, making Eden Gardens one of the tougher pitches to bat on. Which makes it doubly important for the batters to maximise returns in the middle (10-40) overs. Both India and England showed that in their innings, scoring 148 runs (4.93 rpo) and 168 runs (5.6 rpo) respectively.