Queering the Pitch: Is India Getting its 22-Yard Tracks Right?

India has won the Test series against South Africa, but it needs more skilled batsmen, writes Ronojoy Sen

The debate over the standard of the pitches in the ongoing India-South Africa series, where two Tests finished in less than three days (one was washed out in Bangalore), has reached a crescendo. While the Indian team thinks turning tracks are par for the course, others, including many former cricketers from Australia and England, believe that the pitches at Nagpur and Mohali were unsuitable for Test cricket.

Sample this. After winning the third Test at Nagpur and the series, Indian captain Virat Kohli said, “There are a lot of people writing a lot of things about the pitch… I think it is just a matter of mindset where people are just giving their opinions and they are free to do so… we have never complained when we had challenging conditions and won’t complain in the future either.” Kohli was responding to comments by the likes of former England captain Michael Vaughan who tweeted: “This pitch in Nagpur is nothing short of diabolical for Test Cricket ...Telling me that was prepared to last 5 days!”

The truth, as usual, about the pitches for the South Africa series lies somewhere in between. Two things need to be noted. First, the Nagpur pitch in particular was not conducive to lasting five days and to an even contest between bat and ball. Second, the pitches, which have turned from day one, were of course prepared to give India a home advantage.

The Pitch Advantage

• In the India-South Africa series, what is notable is that the pitches, which have turned from day one, were bound to give India a home advantage
  
• Most countries prepare pitches that do give some advantage to the home team though not to the extent that one saw in the India-South Africa series
  
• The ongoing series also witnessed the Indian batsmen’s inability to score heavily against the opposition spinners
  
• In this series India’s highest score has been 215, which is not so much an indication of the quality of pitches but decline in the skills of Indian batsmen
  

Sub-Continental Turning Tracks

Both factors – Test matches finishing in three days or the hosts playing in favourable conditions -- are by no means peculiar to India. Most countries prepare pitches that do give some advantage to the home team though not to the extent that we have seen in the India-South Africa series. And it has become fairly common all over the world for matches to end well before the fifth day.

In the 2015 Ashes, the pinnacle of cricket so far as England and Australia are concerned, held in England we saw at least two of the five Test matches ending in three days. The conditions in those two Tests, at Birmingham and Nottingham where the ball swung and seamed, were more conducive to the English than the visiting Australians.

What has riled many observers is that the Nagpur pitch was turning from the morning session of the first day itself. As one cricket writer has noted a pitch that starts turning from day one only gets worse; whereas seaming pitches often get better to bat on as the match progresses ensuring a more even contest between bat and ball.

While there is a good deal of truth in that, it is also a fact that turning tracks of the Indian sub-continent have usually got much more stick than seaming pitches. The imputation is that pace and swing is in the natural order of things while spin is legitimate only in the latter stages of a Test match. In India, the pitch is further queered by the fact that the Indian cricket board hardly makes any money from ticket sales in Test matches and is not really bothered about them finishing early.

Decline in Skills

Most visiting teams expect turning tracks in India, and it is assumed too that India will take full advantage of the conditions. One of the major differences in the current India-South Africa series has been the Indian batsmen’s inability to score heavily against the opposition spinners. It’s true that India has won two test matches fairly easily, but it is also a fact that the Indians haven’t looked comfortable against the mediocre South African spinners.

In the normal course of things India would have racked up reasonably high scores while the opposition in most cases would have crumbled. But in this series India’s highest score has been 215, with the highest score by an individual batsman at Nagpur being 40. This is not so much an indication of the quality of pitches but the decline in the skills of Indian batsmen to play spin. It also points to a general decline in the art of grafting for runs, as India’s team director Ravi Shastri pointed out, in the face of incessant one-day and Twenty20 cricket. It is a safe bet that Indian batsmen of an earlier vintage would have played far better on these tracks.

To their credit the South Africans have not griped excessively about the pitches. The South African captain Hashim Amla admitted that the three days in Nagpur were probably the “toughest days” of his Test career. Ironically while controversy has raged around the Nagpur pitch, the match between Australia and New Zealand in Adelaide, where the pink ball and day-night games were introduced for the first time in Test cricket, also ended in three days. That once again reiterated the point that today’s batsmen are less likely to prosper in bowler-friendly conditions.

(The writer is with the National University of Singapore. He is the author of the just-published Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India.)