From Prem Mohanty, Thailand

Cricket must really have been tough for batsmen when the trend was for uncovered pitches and zero protective equipment. Add to that no limit on the number of bouncers allowed in an over. Over the years it has evolved to be more of a batsman's game but in retrospect, its not changed a lot atleast when it comes to Test Cricket.

The pitch for the second test of the India v Sri Lanka series at Galle has different characteristics at both ends. Now I do understand that Galle had been ravaged by the Tsunami and the ground was rebuilt from scratch. But a pitch like this on the first day and the way the batsmen tackled the variable bounce reminds me of the days when uncovered pitches was the norm.

Here in Bangkok we play using taped tennis balls and we play on a surface which resembles a hard court and clay court put together.The games were quite predictable where bowlers had to suffer a lot. One day someone suggested that we add two extra layers of tape representing the seam. Now who's heard of that. We decided to try it out and voila! The batsmen started having a torrid time. Seam movement, swing,plays n misses, all seemed so surreal. Now our weekend games have become much more interesting with bowlers being more in command.