India have once again returned to demanding early turn, but they could be underestimating how much more aware and better equipped visiting teams have become
Philander: ‘On that surface 123 was like 350-400’
Over the three days of the first India-South Africa Test match and its aftermath, a tricky, up-and-down pitch at Eden Gardens has triggered two parallel debates.One, already discussed on these pages, is whether such pitches are good for Test cricket.The other, which gained urgency as South Africa pressed home the decisive advantage they gained on the third morning, is whether such pitches are good for India. Is it really in their best interests to roll out tracks that turn sharply, and offer uneven bounce, from day one?Related
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India certainly think so. Gautam Gambhir, their head coach, has made it clear that he and the rest of India’s team management had asked curator Sujan Mukherjee for a surface along the lines of what they got.”This is what we asked for, and this is what we got,” Gambhir said in his post-match press conference. “I thought the curator was very supportive. And I still believe that irrespective of how the wicket was, 123 [124] was chaseable. And I felt that if you are willing to put your head down, and if you have a solid defence, if you have the temperament, you can definitely score runs.”Yes, it might not be a wicket which is going to [allow you to] be very, very flamboyant, where you can play those big shots. But if you are willing to put your head down, definitely it’s a wicket where you can score.”Is the pressure mounting on Gambhir, the red-ball coach?
Score, here, had to be a relative term. Neither team passed 200 over the four innings, and Temba Bavuma scored the only half-century of the match, his unbeaten third-innings 55 helping South Africa set a target of 124 that proved well beyond India in fourth-innings conditions where run-scoring and survival were both fraught with risk.While there were generous amounts of turn on offer from the first afternoon itself, the factor that made batting especially challenging was uneven bounce, which meant batters could never feel settled at the crease. There were 12 scores of over 20, but only one above 40.”This is exactly the pitch we were looking for,” Gambhir reiterated, when asked if the uneven bounce had surprised him. “And I feel that, as I just mentioned before, that the curator was very, very helpful. And this is exactly what we wanted. And this is exactly what we got. When you don’t play well, this is what happens.”Over the last decade, India have tended to go back and forth over their preference of pitches for home Tests. In 2015, when they were a young, up-and-coming team taking on a South Africa side with a proud away record, they won a four-Test series 3-0, with two of the Tests played on square turners. This proved to be a one-off, as India built a formidable home record over the next half-decade or so on pitches that usually allowed both teams to post sizeable first-innings totals.Simon Harmer picked up eight wickets in the Kolkata Test•BCCIThe first home Test of the post-pandemic period, at Chennai in 2021, however, made India rethink their strategy, as England won a Test match on the back of a massive first-innings total that India weren’t able to get close to. Then, the pitch was benign on day one but began to offer sharp turn even before India began their first innings; winning the toss gave England a massive advantage.It was here that India went back to asking curators for pitches that turned from day one, in the belief that these surfaces would minimise toss advantage.Gambhir echoed this sentiment on Sunday. “We have always said we want turning wickets where the ball turns a little on day one so that the toss doesn’t become an important factor. We’ve never said we want to play on bad wickets or rank turners. Ultimately, if we had won, we wouldn’t be speaking about the pitch this much.”That Gambhir retained his belief that turning tracks minimised the effect of the toss was interesting, considering India’s recent results on such pitches. They have lost the toss in each of their last three home Tests on tracks with early turn – against New Zealand in Pune and Mumbai last year, and now against South Africa – and have gone on to lose each match.Losing the toss has meant India have had to bat fourth on all three occasions. This is usually a disadvantage even on flatter subcontinental pitches. Pitches that offer turn and/or uneven bounce early on often give teams their only real window of straightforward batting conditions — which could last for as little as one session — on day one, and amplify the treachery of batting fourth.Gambhir: ‘This was not an unplayable wicket’
How might Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata have played out if India had won the toss and batted first?There is one counter-argument, though, which comes from India’s series against Australia in early 2023. In that series, which pitted two relatively evenly-matched spin-bowling units, batting second seemed to give teams a bit of an advantage, because early moisture in the first session of the match often made the ball turn alarmingly, before the pitch settled down somewhat.Asked about this after India lost the third Test in Indore — where Australia’s spinners made deadly use of that first-session moisture — their then captain Rohit Sharma said he too had pondered the question of whether there was an advantage to batting second on such pitches, without coming to a decisive conclusion. “Again it tells you that toss is not a factor at all in this series,” he said. “You’ve got to bring your best skills, play best cricket and win the game.”It could well be the case, notwithstanding recent results, that pitches that turn sharply, and early, by and large advantage the team winning the toss less than flat pitches that begin breaking up on day two or three. Gambhir’s belief only reiterates similar thoughts expressed by previous coaches and captains stretching at least as far back as 2012, when MS Dhoni called for pitches that turned from day one during a home series against England. He made this plea after India had a Test against England on a slow, low, flat pitch in Ahmedabad.”I don’t even want to see this wicket,” Dhoni had said. “There wasn’t enough turn and bounce for the spinners… Hopefully in the coming matches we’ll see the wicket turn, right from start, or as soon as possible so that the toss doesn’t become vital.”A thread runs directly from Dhoni 13 years ago to Gambhir now, and every team management along the way has also subscribed to the broad idea that the toss matters less on square turners than on flat pitches.That’s the Test – Keshav Maharaj leads the celebrations•Getty ImagesThe recent history of square turners in India presents one other observable pattern. They have tended to occur in series where India rate their oppositions highly, such as the 2015 series against South Africa. The series against Australia in 2017, which came at the end of a long home season played mostly on flat pitches, began on such a pitch in Pune, where a defeat made them veer away from that gameplan.In 2023, India went 2-0 up against Australia on sharp turners, before a defeat in the third Test in Indore led them to close out the series with a high-scoring draw on an Ahmedabad shirtfront. Now, after two Tests against West Indies on pitches enabling big scores in the first innings, India have once again returned to demanding early turn. They respect South Africa, and they don’t want to take any chances.In respecting their opposition in this manner, however, India could be underestimating just how much more aware and better equipped visiting teams have become over recent years. Australia in 2023, England and New Zealand last year, and South Africa now have all arrived with players who are more experienced, possess better attributes for the conditions, or both, than most previous touring teams from those countries. Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj, for example, aren’t just skillful fingerspinners; they’re both on their second Test tours of India, and bring knowledge gained over long careers that have taken them to all parts of the world, including two recent subcontinent tours. Giving them conditions that add fangs to their bowling may not be in India’s best interests.And in doing this, India may be underestimating just how good their own bowlers are on normal Indian pitches. In Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav, they have the world’s best fast-bowling wicket-taker and the world’s best spin-bowling wicket-taker in conditions with minimal help for seam or spin. In Mohammed Siraj, they have a quick, skillful operator who is dangerous with new ball and old, and can pound away on good lengths relentlessly without losing his intensity. In Ravindra Jadeja, they have one of India’s greatest-ever fingerspinners, and if Washington Sundar and Axar Patel aren’t yet as rounded as he is, they come close to matching him for control. All three are genuine batters as well.Against this, in Kolkata, South Africa had an attack that had Harmer, Maharaj and the hugely gifted left-arm quick Marco Jansen, but they were without their best fast bowler, Kagiso Rabada, and had Wiaan Mulder, a batting allrounder, taking the new ball in the first innings. This attack certainly did not match India’s for depth or variety in Indian conditions. And certainly not for experience in Indian conditions.There was a distinct gap between these attacks, on paper, and India narrowed it with their choice of pitch. They had done the same thing last year, against New Zealand, with devastating consequences. They chose to do it again.There’s something to admire in India’s bull-headed belief in their pitch strategy. But is it really doing their cause any good?