Soon after he tendered his resignation to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) abruptly in last year's July, renowned curator Tony Hemming joined the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on a two-year contract.

One of Tony's immediate tasks was to prepare wickets for Pakistan's home series against Bangladesh and during his first assignment, Pakistan suffered their first-ever defeat against Bangladesh on home soil and also lost the two-match Test series 2-0 at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium in August-September.

"That was funny, wasn't it? The first Test, Bangladesh beat Pakistan on this soil and on my pitch… I was like a traitor [laughs]. The pitch I made here was a very good cricket wicket. But Pakistan just couldn't read it," Tony, who is currently overseeing the wickets of the ICC Champions Trophy across the three Pakistan venues – Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi – told The Daily Star yesterday.

The Australian curator has prepared three wickets for three different games at Rawalpindi, starting with the Bangladesh-New Zealand match today, which he said would be played on a bare pitch with hardly any grass.

"What I can say is that there's no grass. Because we played one tournament for a month here in December, [with matches] every day. And we had ice on the field every day. So, the grass is recovering."

Tony also said that the wicket which would be used for the Bangladesh-Pakistan tie on February 27 is the greenest of the three but said all of the wickets at Rawalpindi would help the batters more than the bowlers.

"We will finish Pakistan-Bangladesh in the middle [pitch], some green grass are there.

"Most of them close to 300 [par score]… Normally, there's a good balance between bat and ball. But the grass has been buried because of the winter. So, for batters it would be playing beautifully," he said.

On Saturday, Australia chased down a target of 352 runs in 47.3 overs in Lahore and after the match, Australia's centurion Josh Inglis claimed that dew made life easier for them.

Tony said dew could play a big role in Rawalpindi as well.

"We will have dew. So normally, dew helps the second team batting, doesn't it? So, it will be a challenge," he added.

Meanwhile, during the press meet, New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner said they would formulate a plan for the Bangladesh game keeping the wickets' behaviour in mind.

"We've got a few plans for Bangladesh, but I think we obviously have to wait and see what the wicket does," said Santner a day before the game.

"If it is pretty flat, I think it is probably similar stuff to what we've been operating in Karachi. It's hitting that hard length for a long period of time.

"I think traditionally it's quite a high scoring ground so we have to be on it then with the bat, we just talk about trying to build partnerships and do that out there."