RAISING ‘PITCH’
   Date :01-Mar-2021

RAISING PITCH_1 &nbs
 
 
TRUST Ravichandran Ashwin to slay criticism in a manner befitting a cavalier warrior. The off-spinner, who has scaled the prestigious Mt. 400 Test wickets peak, gave it back to the critics of the Ahmedabad Test match pitch in his own usual non-chalance by posing a teaser, “What is a good cricket surface?”. Ashwin’s poser should clear many prejudiced opinions about the Indian pitches whenever a visiting team is confounded by the spin on offer. This time it was the English team’s turn to face the heat.
 
They failed miserably in the shortest-ever Test match played in India at the Narendra Modi Stadium as the third Test ended within two days for a crushing Indian victory. As expected, supporters of England cricket immediately trained their guns on the surface. Ashwin’s retort should help them clear their biases where a seaming wicket is never questioned while turning track is always a bad advertisement for Test cricket. All the talk around Indian surfaces is a time-tested tactic employed by visiting teams, especially the always-whining English side. Instead of tackling the challenge on offer, which the Indians have managed in foreign countries really well, teams like England and Australia put up the white flag at the first puff of dust. The Ahmedabad Test serves as a glaring example of what is wrong with the modern batsmen. All the hullabaloo over the turning track is nothing but an alibi to reject batsmen’s incompetence against the turning ball. Rather than finding ills in the surface on offer, a look inward by the batsmen should make them worthy competitors against spin bowling. Call it a flaw gifted by slam-bang cricket or their ineptitude, the batting in the third Test was, in fact, the worst advertisement for the art of playing spin.
 
While all the scorn has been directed at the surface on offer, the fact remains that majority of the batsmen fell to straighter ones. The devil was in the mind, not in the surface that stayed to its character of a turner. Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar’s emphatic stand on poor batting technique should settle the issue for England and also some of the Indians who take great pleasure in criticising everything in the country. Strangely, there is no talk about pitches when India tour the SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia). Back in 2002-03, New Zealand had rolled out lush green wickets to nullify India’s batting class.
 
The pitches prepared had a shade of green in which a frog could have been camouflaged. India lost badly but learned a lesson for future tours. Full credit to the Indian team for standing up on whatever is offered to them. The historic series win in Australia last month had come on wickets that were typically Australian. History tells us that India are regularly dished out green surfaces in England with an idea of exploiting their perceived weakness against seam bowling. Those Tests are always termed as a battle between bat and ball. It doesn’t matter when a seaming ball dominates the contest so far the batsmen at the receiving end are Indians. India have managed to turn tables in those conditions, too. Sadly, teams visiting India may never learn the art of conquering foreign frontiers till they do not consider spin as an essential part of a contest.