Pitch Report | Abhinav Mukund and Daren Ganga: It's a pretty warm day here in Thiruvananthapuram to start off this ODI series. Early 30s, the temperature. Let's take a look at the dimensions. Pitch number four, pretty even on each side: 65 meters on either side, and the longest boundary down the ground is 74 meters. It looks like a red soil pitch, but it's actually black Mandya clay from neighboring Karnataka. You would know with that sort of soil, you'll get an extra bounce. I'm looking firstly about the grass covering and if you look at the surface, it's minimal, and that means that there will be less lateral movement. This surface is hard. So that means to say that the energy will stay on the ball and not absorbed from the surface. It will slide on good for batting, and batting should be a little bit stronger than bowling. Now, one of the things that bowlers will take into consideration is that change in the laws. Since July 2025, those two new balls used from either end converge into one in that 34th over, and the degree of swing in the last 10 overs has changed from 0.6-0.65 to just about 0.8-0.83 and that to me is a slight advantage for bowlers to capitalize on in this first ODI. And it will also help that the ball will be dry. The curator confirms that there is no dew over the last two, three days, and the anti-dew agent has been applied as well. Maybe a good day to win the toss, bat first, score big.