India, Oct. 2 -- When the proverbial lambs to slaughter was being played out in the Guwahati ODI with bowlers' being the victims, Parthiv Patel in commentary narrated his pre-match conversation with the pitch curator where they were half joking 400 runs might be scored. Little did they know, Mt 400 would be scaled twice across 93.3 overs in the India-West Indies ODI.

Ashish Bhowmick, incidentally also BCCI's lead curator, was in charge of the pitch in a match being played in the home state of BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia, who was also in attendance. No prizes for guessing the bald playing surface was not an accident.

Cricket administrators the world over operate with a long-held belief that the viewing public likes to see runs only in ...