No matter what the outcome of the Hamilton Test, two things are clear already.

One, India has exposed the Kiwi taunt about its batsmen not being the best. From their own first innings performance, it is clear that if Sourav Ganguly's lousy luck with the toss had not continued, the New Zealanders would probably have broken their own world record for the lowest Test innings total (26 v England at Auckland, 1954-55).

Two, we need to wake up to reality and end this nonsense of providing hard, fast, bouncy pitches at our Test centres. Yes, we need to play at least some of our domestic cricket on quick tracks, so that our cricketers learn how to counter good fast bowling on conducive tracks. But there is no reason why we should let second-rate players of spin like Australia, South Africa, England and New Zealand off the hook. After all, it's only they and their journalists who classify these tracks as 'underprepared', 'unplayable', and 'dust bowls'. On the same tracks, our batsmen usually pile up decent, if not huge, scores.

In fact, there's no reason why we should have tours by these sides in the months of November to February. Let us have these tours in October or April-May. If they are really world-class players, let them cope with the conditions. Or else let them admit that they are not good enough for cricket in the subcontinent.

Talking of hard, bouncy pitches, why can't some domestic games at least be played on matting wickets, like they used to be in the past? After all, those wickets have given us great players of fast bowling from Vijay Merchant down to Sunil Gavaskar.

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