Eden Gardens expected to assist pacers, dew likely to play big part

The historic Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata is all set to change the trend of high scoring humdingers in the ODI series between India and England as the surface is expected to offer enough assistance to the bowlers to keep them in the game. As per a local ground staff, the surface won’t witness the low slow bounce which has been the age old story of the ground. Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) under the able leadership of Sourav Ganguly have re-laid the soil base to change the nature of the surface. The newly laid Bermuda grass is expected to assist the seamers.

Just like the first two ODIs, dew is expected to play a big factor in the outcome of the match as it is expected to fall heavily by 6 pm. “It will be hard and generate good bounce. There will be something for both, batsmen as well as bowlers. The dew is expected to come down after 6 PM,” a groundsman at work was quoted as saying by the Sportskeeda.

The first two ODIs saw two high scoring matches where 350 were scored by both the teams with utmost ease. After a brilliant start by the England bowlers in both the matches, they failed to capitalise on their advantage and lost both the matches to concede the series to the Men in Blue. While Virat Kohli and Kedar Jadhav were the saviours for India in the first encounter, Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni scored match-winning centuries to turn the match in their favour.

The surface in the Eden Gardens underwent a full renovation between November 2015 to February 2016 and the Test match hosted between the Men in Blue and the Kiwis proved that the pitch assisted the fast bowlers much more than other Indian pitches. The match will be played on the same surface which hosted the Ranji Trophy tie between Karnataka and Delhi.

Also read: IND v ENG, 3rd ODI Preview: Eoin Morgan seeks redemption for England in Eden Gardens