The man in the line of fire is none other than Nadeem Memon, the curator at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai, the venue of the first Test match between Australia and India which ended in three days. But he does not accept the blame for producing a substandard wicket.

The Test match was over in double quick time and Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was of the view that the wicket had turn and it was a typical Indian wicket. His Australian counterpart Steve Waugh however commented that the wicket was not of Test match standards. He added that the ball was bouncing over the wicketkeeper's head with the spinners operating, but he concluded that the Aussies had won the Test so they wouldn't be complaining much about it.

The curator had a little to add on his own. He told CricInfo that the pitch was full of runs and he could not be held responsible if batsmen played rash shots and got themselves out.

"Two batsmen scored centuries, Sachin got two half-centuries. Ramesh scored 44 in the second innings. Even if you see the bowling figures, you will see that the 30 wickets were equally shared by both the spinners and the fast bowlers. So I think the wicket did well. It's the batsmen who failed to stay at the wicket."

Australian wicket-keeper and Man of the Match Adam Gilchrist agreed with the curator on that front. At the media conference, Gilchrist said, "The wicket had a little for everyone. It was a tough wicket to bat on but once you played yourself in, it was very good to play your strokes." Gilchrist along with Matthew Hayden scored centuries in the first innings.

© CricInfo