Last-minute pitch switch mars India's spotless World Cup

It probably would not have happened in any case, but even so, India were getting perilously close to winning the hearts of neutrals. Then Goliath did as Goliath does. A superpower superpowered.

Before or during a World Cup, a Bangladeshi cricket fan inevitably has to decide which team they will support once Bangladesh are out of the equation. For a large majority, it's not India. The richest board in the world, the one that has most sway over the ICC -- these qualities do not endear a team to neutrals in sport, where level playing fields are integral to the game's integrity. To bastardise a saying, Indian cricket is so outsizely powerful, only a mother can love it.

Which is a shame, because over this World Cup, India were building a narrative as powerful as those authored by the Australians in 2003 and 2007, and the West Indians in 1975 and 1979. In those four tournaments, there was very little doubt from the start that if these teams played even close to their potential throughout the event, they would win it without much trouble.

There is a different kind of charm to these tales, as opposed to India and Sri Lanka's underdog miracles in 1983 and 1996, or Pakistan's rabbit-out-of-the-hat sorcery in 1992. What India had been doing, like those legendary Australian and West Indian teams, was show the audience the hidden chamber, the trap door that makes the magic trick possible.

Enough with stretched metaphors. The point is that in the narrative arc weaved by India till the end of the league phase, it mattered not if there was mystique in the form of thrilling wins or an unlikely rally. Their tale was of a team so dominant that they were becoming the story of the tournament.

Can anyone stop India? Will India finally have an off day? Can their bowling attack actually be bested by any team in the modern game? Is the seemingly inevitable, inevitable?

The ultimate frontrunners in cricket, in terms of heft behind oaken boardroom doors, were becoming the ultimate frontrunners on the field. And a fascination had begun to take hold to see whether the lab experiment of pouring money, thought, expertise into a cricketing culture over decades would culminate in one of the most comprehensively dominant World Cup performances in history.

Those questions of a paragraph ago were all about on-field matters, and not the usual suspicions that India were being favoured.

That, unfortunately, is all in the past. India eventually did what India does – the oaken doors opened, closed, the ICC harumphed in private, acquiesced publicly, and India had their way.

The pitch for the semifinal between India and New Zealand in Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium was switched at the last moment from a fresh one, as planned, to one that was used twice before in the tournament. The fresh one was at the centre of the pitch, a position usually reserved for the most important match to be played at the venue, in this case, the semifinal.

A used pitch, with wear and tear from previous matches, will aid spinners, and India have a deadlier arsenal in that department. A fresh pitch, which usually plays true and favours batters throughout and, given the strength of the two teams, produces a level playing field.

According to the ICC's playing conditions for the 2023 World Cup, the relevant ground authority – the Mumbai Cricket Association in this case – is responsible for the preparation and selection of the pitch. The ICC also has an independent pitch consultant, Andy Atkinson, to work with the groundstaff, presumably to ensure that there is no undue advantage enjoyed by the home side in a global tournament.

ICC said after the semifinal started that changes to planned pitch rotations are common and this one was made on the recommendation of the venue curator "in conjunction with our host", and that the independent pitch consultant had no reason to believe the pitch won't play well.

But according to the Daily Mail, pitch consultant Atkinson speculated in a leaked email whether the pitch for the final in Ahmedabad on Sunday "will be the first ever ICC CWC final to have a pitch which has been specifically chosen and prepared to their stipulation at the request of the team management and/or the hierarchy of the home nation board."

Good thing he's independent.

So, with this revelation ends the illusion. The questions are not cricketing anymore. They are not even questions anymore. The narrative that seemed thus far to have been woven by superb bowling, near flawless batting and a seemingly bulletproof team has now been adulterated by "the hierarchy of the home nation board".

Turns out that there was a trap door beneath the trap door, and the lever was wielded by people not on the stage.

That is why it is hard for a neutral to support India -- unlike those West Indian and Australian teams, there will always be a suspicion that their dominance is not purely a cricketing one.

This time it is especially sad because it could have been.