Pot, Kettle, White?
Sri Lanka captain Kumar
Sangakkara has told his players to concentrate on their game instead of
complaining about conditions during
their upcoming tour of
India.
"The attitude should be simple. The first thing we should
start with is no complaints with anything," Sangakkara said on
Thursday.
He said the players should focus on things within their
control rather than complaining about the pitches, weather or food when Sri
Lanka travels to India for three Test matches, five ODIs and two Twenty20 games
next month.
Sangakkara said he expects the tour to be "very exiting
(sic) and also a daunting task," with Sri Lanka yet to win a Test in India. Sri Lanka
has lost eight of the 14 Tests it has played in India.
Pitches, weather and food seem to be the 3 daunting factors that the visitors will be faced with. The tour itinerary covers Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Mohali, Rajkot, Vizag and Cuttack. So a majority of the tour will be played in the Metros and the soon to be Metros in the country.
There's one 4/5 star hotel in Kanpur, 2 at Vizag, 3 at Bhubaneshwar (29km from Cuttack), 1 at Rajkot and one guesses there are more than enough in the other bigger cities. Food, therefore, shouldn't be a real problem.
The weather in most parts of India is the best that any tourist can hope for. And November to February remains the favourite tourist season in the country.
The pitches promise to be diverse in nature but most of them will not be sqaure turners. Sri Lanka has a well rounded bowling attack and are well equipped to face the 'pitch challenge'.
The most puzzling part of Sangakkara's interview is why does he think his players will complain? If one starts looking at the pitches/weather/food on offer in Sri Lanka (food one is not so sure.. I love Sri Lankan food but that is more from a non vegetarian's persepctive), India may start resembling a heaven of sorts.
It surely is a case of the pot calling the kettle black snow white calling a polar bear white (Is this politically more correct? One shall soon find from the volume of hate mail). Coming from a very sensible and intellegent player and a person like Sangakkara, it hurts even more.