"Inzamam (ul Haq) asked me to cut the grass off the wicket in Multan," says Andy Atkinson, the English curator currently under fire for preparing a batsman-friendly pitch in Multan for the first Test, which Pakistan lost by an innings and 52 runs on day five to give India its first Test win on Pakistani soil.

Numerous stories have been doing the rounds about the placid nature of the tracks, and how they have blunted the edge of the Pakistani fast bowlers - with much of the blame falling on the curator.

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Atkinson told rediff.com that he is being made the scapegoat in a conflict of interest between bowlers and batsmen belonging to the home team.

The bowlers want grass on the wicket and seaming conditions to help them, while the team management wants a batting track, he said.

In a bid to clear the air, Atkinson mentioned three key points:

First, he pointed out, no one from the Pakistan Cricket Board had pulled him up for bad preparation of the Multan pitch.

Second, he says, it was skipper Inzamam-ul Haq and team manager Haroon Rashid who asked him to shave the grass off the wicket.

"Inzy has met me just twice in this series, once when I congratulated him for the Karachi hundred and the second time when he asked me to shave the wicket off the grass. He can't look me in the eye. He is a coward," said Atkinson, fuming over how the Pakistan team had put him on the spot.

"He [Inzamam] was unhappy about the Peshawar wicket also, because I gave some juice to it and it seamed around a bit. He made sure after that to have wickets with no seam movement. He just wanted hard and bouncy tracks for his fast bowlers," he added.

After the first day's play at Multan, Inzamam told television channel Sahara Samay that he would never play on such tracks again. He said he had scored two centuries at Multan earlier also, and though those wickets were not a bowler's paradise, they were not as bad as this one.

Five days later, Inzamam did a back flip and said it was unfair to blame the wickets. He told the media that Pakistan had been winning on the same kind of tracks for the last 14-15 years.

Interestingly, what had been put out was that it was vice-captain Yousuf Youhanna who asked for the grass to be cut. There was even speculation that Youhanna had done that because of worry over his own form with the bat.

No, says Atkinson, adding that he is yet to meet the Multan centurion during this series.

"I can't be blamed. After all I didn't bowl long hops and half volleys. I didn't get run out with the bat in the wrong hand," he said, criticizing the Pakistani bowling performance and the run-out of Inzamam for a duck in the crucial second innings of the Test.

Atkinson said he had not been briefed about the kind of pitch required for the Lahore Test, starting April 5.

Clarifying rumors that he had been summoned to the Pakistan dressing room and given a dressing down for the nature of the pitch, Atkinson said, "I had asked for a meeting with Rameez Raja to ask him what kind of wickets they wanted to prepare. I told him about the two contrasting briefs the captain and bowlers gave me about the wicket."

Negating another rumor, Atkinson said he had flown down to Lahore on his own initiative, midway through the first Test, and that his trip there was not at the behest of anyone from the PCB.

Atkinson's fury is perhaps understandable - following India's win in the one-day series and the even more remarkable win in the first Test of the three-day series, Atkinson has copped the most blame from the local media and fans alike. The public perception has been that the tracks prepared gave the advantage to the Indian batsmen over the Pakistan bowlers.

And despite the storm of criticism, not once did any PCB official or Pakistan team member defend the curator.

It's time, Atkinson said, to set the record straight.