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Spin friendly pitches: India's nemesis


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So, last week was an interesting one for Indian cricket, ironically. All the talk about preparing English looking wickets turned out to be a damp squib. With a little help from our kaptaan sahib, India fell in the hole it dug for England! 

It reminds me of the 2017 test match against Australia in Pune. We lost the match by 333 runs! Back in 2012, English team had bundled us down for 142.  So, do we really need spinning tracks?

There was a time when our batsmen were the world's best players of spin. The golden period was 2006-2011 when we were average close to 47 against spinners. Sadly, that number has been dipping down. You dont need to be a nuclear scientist to know the struggle against spinners for Indian batters is real. 

Why not just play to our strength? Indian fast bowling unit has been the world’s best for almost 3 yrs now. The formula has been simple. 3 genuine quicks, 1 spinner and 1 allrounder. In India, makes sense to have 2 spinners. 

Honestly, this is the only formula which is going to work for India. Forget spin friendly pitches. It is only going to bite Indian batsmen, where the sun doesn’t shine! Prepare good, sporting wickets and leave the rest to Indian fast bowlers. They aren’t the world’s best for nothing!

 

 

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I agree. I had made a similar thread before the start of the first test. But we still got a turning track from day 3.

 

 

 

 

Our strength is fast bowling now. We play our best cricket on sporting pitches or bouncy pitches or flattish tracks with a bit of help for pace bowlers.

 

While most of our batsmen cannot play spin. And play bounce rather well.

 

And the ordinary foreign spinners become effective on rank turners.

 

We need to have a pitch with a bit of help for pace bowlers in the 2nd test 

Edited by express bowling
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20 minutes ago, Lone Wolf said:

The last game pitch was anything but completely different from Pune.  I believe we can take them down rather easily on a Turner.  Hopefully they play Bess again & not moeen. 

Chennai will never help pace bowling so it's the only option we got

We can take them down when we score runs. Not when we keep getting out. Look at the averages of Broad and Anderson in India. Its pathetic. They cannot compete with our fast bowlers. Only makes sense to give them a chance. 

Even our batsmen are better against pace, as they showed in Australia.

Edited by Rightarmfast
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16 minutes ago, express bowling said:

Some help for quick bowlers is the key to India doing well. ( not swing bowlers )

 

It is high time our TM understand that our strength is quick bowling.

 

 

 

Indian TM thinking is to play to the weakness of English. Sadly for India, it is a bigger weakness for Indian batsmen than to English. 

The best strategy in any competitve sport or corporate culture is to play to one's strength, not to the opponents weakness. That should be the 2nd or 3rd option.

 

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Agree that a Pune type wicket isn't needed, can turn out to be a lottery. FWIW We gave Smith too many lives in that game.

 

Having said that, a track that offered more turn than the first test pitch could help us if we stack the right batting (at least drop Rahane) lineup. We saw Eng's struggle against spin in Lanka except for the outstanding Root. 

 

I don't think we'd lose the first test with our full strength squad. Jadeja, Shami & if selected Umesh would have given Eng a hard time, we missed a lot of skills badly. 

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35 minutes ago, Rightarmfast said:

Indian TM thinking is to play to the weakness of English. Sadly for India, it is a bigger weakness for Indian batsmen than to English. 

The best strategy in any competitve sport or corporate culture is to play to one's strength, not to the opponents weakness. That should be the 2nd or 3rd option.

 

 

Exactly !

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English attack is better on pacy wickets. If Anyone has seen Anderson (not on tele) he will agree that , his built is nothing but absolutely perfect to become a pace bowler. We have decen pacers but I can guarantee that English will match us at the same time most of their pacers will also score runs. While  Nadeem was poor selection but bats of yesteryears will be hanging their heads in shame as to the way we have made Jack leach and Dom Bess look. Issue has been our selection and tactics in spin department. 

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30 minutes ago, mishra said:

English attack is better on pacy wickets. If Anyone has seen Anderson (not on tele) he will agree that , his built is nothing but absolutely perfect to become a pace bowler. We have decen pacers but I can guarantee that English will match us

 

 

In the last 3 years and a bit, starting 2018, our fast bowlers have been great  ... not just decent.

 

Ishant averages 19 ... Umesh averages 19 ... Bumrah averages 21 ... Shami averages 24.  Two of the above are playing 


England have Anderson averages 21 ... Broad averages 22 ... Woakes averages 24.  Only 1 will play. 

 

This fearing foreign pacers saga should be over now. We have the best fast bowlers in the world.  The other teams should be afraid of us. And it will happen only when we believe in our own abilities.

 

 

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?bowling_pacespin=1;class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=bowling_average;qualmin1=40;qualval1=wickets;spanmax1=12+Feb+2021;spanmin1=01+Jan+2018;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling

 

 

 

 

Edited by express bowling
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2 hours ago, mishra said:

English attack is better on pacy wickets. If Anyone has seen Anderson (not on tele) he will agree that , his built is nothing but absolutely perfect to become a pace bowler. We have decen pacers but I can guarantee that English will match us at the same time most of their pacers will also score runs. While  Nadeem was poor selection but bats of yesteryears will be hanging their heads in shame as to the way we have made Jack leach and Dom Bess look. Issue has been our selection and tactics in spin department. 

 

 

They're good on pacy wickets, but deadly when there is lateral movement, as long as there is little to no swing... hopefully India should be able to counter the bounce. Also no Archer, so no one to really extract venom out of a bouncy pitch

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What about our home record vs SENA record in the last 10 years ? Is this so hard to ignore what our overall strengths are ?

 

We have a bunch of quicks capable of taking wickets at home and abroad (depending on the quick, some good others great) BUT our batting and spinners have done exceptionally better at home, other than that one guy. 

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23 minutes ago, Clarke said:

What about our home record vs SENA record in the last 10 years ? Is this so hard to ignore what our overall strengths are ?

 

We have a bunch of quicks capable of taking wickets at home and abroad (depending on the quick, some good others great) BUT our batting and spinners have done exceptionally better at home, other than that one guy. 

 

 

Our spinners have done better than foreign spinners on flattish and sporting tracks at home.

 

Our spinners have become equal to foreign spinners on turning tracks ... like Pune 2017 and Chennai 2021.

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Biggest problem with our guys is committing to front foot most of the time.. back in the day, Dravid or Laxman used to rock back and play the cut almost from the keeper's gloves.. we dont see that anymore and hence see lot of lbws, caught at short leg wtc..

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26 minutes ago, express bowling said:

 

 

Our spinners have done better than foreign spinners on flattish and sporting tracks at home.

 

Our spinners have become equal to foreign spinners on turning tracks ... like Pune 2017 and Chennai 2021.

 

Biggggg difference between the two. Chennai was very manageable for the first 3.5 days and we could have drawn it even in absence of some key players. Pune was crazy, no doubting that and we don't have that earlier batting quality to survive that. 

 

The tracks we had success on didn't regularly have this helpful for quicks attribute other than the odd one such as NZ (Bhuvi) & Aus (Yadav). How many wickets with new ball vs reverse swing ? I recall more of the latter especially Shami & Yadav producing matchwinning performances. Even Ashwin would pop up with the new ball once in a while! How many overall wickets did we capture with quicks vs Ash/Jad, both sets being of premium quality ? Again think its the latter who weighed more. 

 

With Eng I think they have the fast bowling quality to trouble our batters with some assistance but certainly not spinners if we can show the form of their last tour. 

 

 

Last 10 yrs: https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;host=6;orderby=wickets;spanmax1=12+Feb+2021;spanmin1=12+Feb+2011;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling

 

Last 5 yrs: https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;host=6;orderby=wickets;spanmax1=12+Feb+2021;spanmin1=12+Feb+2016;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling

 

Even for opposition top wicket takers are generally spinners. It can't be that we produce sporting tracks and all opposition quicks go missing.

 

Edited by Clarke
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