‘No undue home advantage’ is how Virat Kohli shrugged off
criticism with regard to the track at Nagpur in a match which India wrapped in
under 3 days. South Africa’s 9-year, 15-test series long unbeaten streak was
broken and it also marked a wonderful start to Kohli’s stint as the test team
captain on home soil with a series win against the top-ranked test side. Ashwin
who ended up match figures of 46-13-98-12 backed his skipper asking, ‘what's
the problem with spin and bounce?.. It
is about skill for batsmen to play it and counter it’. Team director Ravi
Shastri added, ‘Nothing wrong with the pitches.. I have no qualms about it’. When a cricket match
is over and players are questioned more about something other than
individual/team accomplishments, you know the events through the course of the
match have entered a contentious territory.
In an era of sheer batting domination the success of bowlers
from either camp should have been a cause of joy for a cricket fan but instead has
commanded critical reviews. 3 out of the 4 lowest team totals (17 innings in 5
tests overall) at Nagpur, a venue which has had 4 results and only 1 draw, were
recorded in this match. This match came on the back of the grossly
rain-affected Bengaluru test and another quick finish at Mohali. The match at
Mohali recorded 2 out of 5 lowest totals (where a side has been dismissed completely)
at the venue. South Africa’s first innings total of 214 at Bengaluru was the
joint lowest total at the Chinnaswamy stadium.
A series featuring likes of Kohli, Amla, AB de Villiers has
not seen a team total exceed 215 in completed 9 innings. 75 out of the 90
wickets in the series have fallen to spinners. Only four 50+ individual scores
have been notched up and the wait for an individual hundred is still on. Some
of these statistics are astounding, especially for tracks in early part of the
cricket season in India; for example in the two Ranji trophy matches at Mohali
during the current season 2 totals of 600+ were scored. All this has been put
under the carpet of & being criticised in the name of what is popularly
coined in cricket as ‘home advantage’.
Trivially, the home advantage should imply effortless
adaptability/acclimatization for an outdoor sport, but the kind of impact the
22 yards have on the final outcome of a cricket match elaborates the scope in
the current case. Those favouring perceivably supportive tracks for home team
bowlers have a case in catalyzing result-oriented matches. Also, having such
pitches doesn’t rule out the opposition outrightly as illustrated by India’s
win on a lively Johannesburg track in 2006 & England’s triumph in 2012 on a
Mumbai pitch bearing substantial turn & bounce. The subjectivity though, puts
this approach of preparing pitches to opposition’s weakness on a thin-line
separating tracks leading to result-driven matches and putting a venue’s repute
at stake in case it goes too far like Nagpur & Trent Bridge, earlier in the
year.
Given cricket’s intricacies it is almost impossible to
define an ideal surface, and probably this wide range of possible environments
renders versatility. A tame draw or a quick result in most cases suggests monopolistic
domination of either the bat or ball and neither is a favourable outcome on a
consistent basis. Intriguingly the position between these extremes is a direct
consequence of the kind of surface on which the match is contested!
Since the turn of the millennium India has lost only 3 out
of 26 test series at home; first against a strong South African side in 2000,
later in 2004-05 against an Australian side in pursuit of the final frontier and
latest versus well-balanced English outfit in 2012-13. Yet through these years,
only a few instances of critical reviews regarding dust-bowls/rank-turners come
to mind. In fact India’s famous wins in home conditions like Kolkata 2001 (vs
Australia), Chennai 2008 (vs England), Kolkata 2010 (vs South Africa) and Mohali
2010 (vs Australia) all came through Indian spinners contributing significantly,
but the tracks had something for the batsmen & fast bowlers.
Ravichandran Ashwin is currently placed at 5 in the ICC test
bowlers’ rankings and in most likeliness he will go up on that list after this
series. Even he would admit that on current form he doesn’t need assistance
from the surface to bag big wickets. Ishant Sharma’s probing spells in Sri
Lanka to propel India’s series win has been followed up by a series in which he
has virtually nothing to do! Vijay and Rahane have been in sublime touch
through India’s away tours over the last 2-3 years, and suddenly find
themselves unable to get going on surfaces on which they have grown up and
observed their peers amass runs in familiar conditions. Virat Kohli was, and
probably still is, among the top 4-5 batsman in world cricket across formats
and he as a batsman would have loved to stamp his authority on a top bowling
attack in his backyard. Undoubtedly, the pitch at Nagpur has taken some sheen
of India’s win and the reasons are equally valid. Given the manner in which
senior members of the team management are strongly advocating for pitches which
offer turn and bounce from the 1st day itself is appearing to be a
policy thought rather than an aberration, something which can be done without
for consistent success on home soil!
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