Brabourne Passes the Test

There’s a clock on the clubhouse façade at the Brabourne Stadium. It has a square gray dial. On Wednesday, 2 December, when the white hands on the clock showed 9.30 am, the Cricket Club of India’s 36-year exile ended.

But the Brabourne passed the test. The batsmen scored runs. The bowlers took wickets. When they did not, the umpires helped, as exemplified by the poor bat-pad verdict meted out to the centurion Tillakaratne Dilshan.

At stumps Sri Lanka, after winning the toss, were 366 for 8. Dilshan, the only Sri Lankan batsman whose name was chanted by the Mumbai crowd, hit 109, his 11th Test century and his sixth this year. He also sported an intricately wrought beard and a diamond earring, which made him look more like a soulful South Asian musician in London or New York than an adventurous opening batsman.

Harbhajan Singh took four wickets as India stormed back in the final session, though they also gave away 153 runs. “This is the kind of pitch Test cricket should be played on,” the offspinner said.

In response to a question about Muttiah Muralitharan’s slump, Harbhajan said: “There is nothing wrong with any bowler. The problem is with the wickets. The kind of wickets we have been playing on, no bowler would be successful. But this wicket has bounce for spinners. ”

That means Murali might return to form at the Brabourne. That is all the more reason for India to not allow Sri Lanka to reach the psychologically important mark of 400, though the allrounder Angelo Mathews is unconquered on 86.

For a first day, the attendance was encouraging. There were, of course, the typical south Mumbai teenagers in Chelsea football T-shirts and baggy shorts. But there were also the elderly from the suburbs. Somehow they looked younger—Brabourne made them happy.

There’s a clock on the clubhouse façade at the Brabourne Stadium. It has a square gray dial. On Wednesday, 2 December, when the white hands on the clock showed 9.30 am, the Cricket Club of India’s 36-year exile ended.

But the Brabourne passed the test. The batsmen scored runs. The bowlers took wickets. When they did not, the umpires helped, as exemplified by the poor bat-pad verdict meted out to the centurion Tillakaratne Dilshan.

At stumps Sri Lanka, after winning the toss, were 366 for 8. Dilshan, the only Sri Lankan batsman whose name was chanted by the Mumbai crowd, hit 109, his 11th Test century and his sixth this year. He also sported an intricately wrought beard and a diamond earring, which made him look more like a soulful South Asian musician in London or New York than an adventurous opening batsman.

Harbhajan Singh took four wickets as India stormed back in the final session, though they also gave away 153 runs. “This is the kind of pitch Test cricket should be played on,” the offspinner said.

In response to a question about Muttiah Muralitharan’s slump, Harbhajan said: “There is nothing wrong with any bowler. The problem is with the wickets. The kind of wickets we have been playing on, no bowler would be successful. But this wicket has bounce for spinners. ”

That means Murali might return to form at the Brabourne. That is all the more reason for India to not allow Sri Lanka to reach the psychologically important mark of 400, though the allrounder Angelo Mathews is unconquered on 86.

For a first day, the attendance was encouraging. There were, of course, the typical south Mumbai teenagers in Chelsea football T-shirts and baggy shorts. But there were also the elderly from the suburbs. Somehow they looked younger—Brabourne made them happy.