Chris Scott, the curator at the Wanderers is disappointed with Geoffery Boycott’s recent criticism if himself and fellow groundsmen Wilson Ngobese. Boycott had alleged they had been “too kind” to India in the recently concluded Test series and added he would have ‘strangled the groundsmen if captain of South Africa’.
by BIPIN DANI
“I am very disappointed and it is strange to have heard this from him”, Scott said. “The pitch was prepared as required by the South African team management and the captain and Graeme Smith was happy with the pitch.
“The wicket had fair bounce, had minimum natural movement, the bowlers could hold a proper grip on the ball and the South African team came close to winning the first Test”, he added. “They should have easily won the first game”.
For over a period of four decades, except for a three-year break from 1996, Chris Scott has been the groundsman at Wanderers and there is nothing he doesn’t know about the famous venue.
Some twelve years ago he was awarded the Man of the Match award (yes, you have read correctly) for the Test against New Zealand. This was for his ability to make ground playable after consistent rain and he has also won the Groundsman of the Year ward in South Africa.
Wilson Ngobese (53) has spent most of his life at Kingsmead in Durban. Like India’s late Eknath Solkar, this man used to water the ground from early days. He has been a chief curator in Durban since 1999.
Bipin Dani
He has toured UAE, Sri Lanka, Morocco and Malaysia, to name a few, and contributes to a large number of newspapers in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
His twitter bio reads: Eat cricket stories, drink cricket stories, sleep cricket stories.
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