Pitch that's out of touch with ground realities

[bharat297]

[h4]Slow, low batting tracks won't prepare India for tour Down Under[/h4] [h2]Pitch that's out of touch with ground realities[/h2] Anand Vasu in Kolkata December 3, 2007 With a tour of Australia coming up, and only one warm-up match to acclimatise to conditions before the four Tests, are India shooting themselves in the foot by playing on pitches like the one at Eden Gardens? © AFP Once they had their second turn to bat, India quickly regained control of the second Test and, with a morning declaration inevitable and given Pakistan's propensity to self-destruct, a result in their favour is still on the cards. Yet some serious questions need to be asked about the pitch this match is being played on. At the end-of-day press conferences on different days India's players have insisted that this is a result pitch. Geoff Lawson, visibly annoyed after India had piled on 600-plus first-innings runs, made his sentiments clear. "You play Test cricket on different surfaces. But the bowlers should have a chance of bowling the opposition out," he said. "Cricket's all about the balance between bat and ball. On pitches like this there's no balance at all. It's all in favour of the batsmen. But then again, if this is an exciting draw on the last day you're going to say the pitch is okay." Even overlooking the larger picture of balance between bat and ball, and without rushing to any conclusions about where this match is headed, the Indian think-tank has something to mull over. With a tour of Australia coming up, and only one warm-up match to acclimatise to conditions before the four Tests, are they shooting themselves in the foot by playing on pitches like the one at Eden Gardens? Come to think of it, things weren't especially different in the first Test at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi either. As ever, there are two schools of thought. The first will suggest that India can worry about Australia later, and focus now on winning this series against Pakistan. It can be argued that the one thing India need the most going into the Australia series is batsmen in form and morale high, something victory against Pakistan is likely to ensure. The other side of the same coin, though, suggests the confidence batsmen would have gained might be false, for there has been little in this pitch to test them. Barring Dinesh Karthik, who has hit a trough in an otherwise successful year, India's batsmen scored 202, 50, 82, 102, 112* and 50* in the first innings. But this was against a tired attack on a pitch that was slow and low. Batsmen have been able to press forward relentlessly, often not bothering to wait for the ball to be delivered before planting the front foot down the pitch. The frustration of the bowlers was evident through the past four days, and a case in point was someone like Mohammad Sami occupying the crease for three hours. The ball was turning out of the rough but once a batsman decided he would not attempt to score, and simply blocked, even edges did not carry to close-in fielders. Even the best batsmen in the world take time to adjust to different conditions, and playing long innings on pitches that are low and slow is habit-forming. Going on the front foot in a pre-determined manner may be okay for the moment, but doing so against Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson or Shaun Tait in Australian conditions will be career suicide. A couple of months ago the BCCI's Ground and Pitches Committee, comprising Dhiraj Parsana, Daljit Singh, PR Viswanathan, Taposh Chatterjee and Prabir Mukherjee, met in Mumbai to discuss plans to improve the quality of pitches in India. Experts from the private institutions were consulted for advice on matters from soil composition to internal drainage and many promises were made to ensure sporting pitches that hold up for five days and have some bounce in them. Come the Test matches, though, little has changed. The Kotla pitch was two-paced, Eden Gardens has been consistently slow.. Is the BCCI actually serious about doing something to improve the state of pitches? Are they, in some ways, doing the team no favours by continuing to produce slow, low pitches, leaving their players undercooked when it comes to playing away from home? On Monday, Cricket Australia announced that it had accepted a BCCI request to shorten, from three days to two, one of the tour matches to be played between the second and third Tests. The BCCI cited no reason for the request, but the very fact they have sought something like this tells you a bit about their line of thinking. Anand Vasu is an associate editor at Cricinfo © Cricinfo http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ci/content/current/story/323543.html

[bharat297]

I said this a while back ... that we should prepare pitches as close to Australian pitches as possible and treat these games as warm-ups. However, many on this forum criticised my view. Now look what has happened, we are drawing matches on featherbeds against a depleted Pakistani bowling attack, in preparation for a series where we will be facing Lee, Johnson, Tait and Clark on some of the fastest pitches on Earth. As usual, we have gone for short-term gain over long-term gain. Now it seems I am not the only one who sees how pointless this series is.

[Donny]

However' date=' many on this forum criticised my view. Now look what has happened, [b']we are drawing matches on featherbeds against a depleted Pakistani bowling attack,

?? It's a 3 Test series. 1 result from 1 Test. India won by 6 wickets with 276 being the highest of the 4 innings.

[bharat297]

What I am saying is that this series (win,lose or draw) proves nothing and does nothing for the team heading into the Australian series. Our batsman are scoring runs on flat wickets, only our spinners are getting any assistance from the pitches, and even that is minimal. We are going from conditions like this, to Australia to face 4 quicks (and I mean genuine quicks) on hard bouncy pitches.

[Ram]

I mildy disagree with OP. Nothing succeeds like success. In fact, during the 2003/4 tour, we hardly played any test cricket till 4 months before that. That didnt stop us from performing well did it ? Ultimately, how we do in this tour will depend on the quality of our players, their form and the hunger they show.

[bharat297]

I suppose but I think the fact that we didnt prepare hard and bouncy pitches will actually hurt the players confidence because it is indirectly saying to them .. "We dont think you can win unless we prepare these kinds of surfaces". If they prepared hard and bouncy pitches and we won 2-0 or 3-0 and had players in form ... that would be a real confidence boost heading into Australia. Remember (as good as we did) that we didnt actually win in Australia, we drew. Remember, heading into England this year we had 4 ODIs in Ireland and 2 4-day matches in England, so our batsman were quite prepared for the conditions for the Test series.

[Ram]

I suppose but I think the fact that we didnt prepare hard and bouncy pitches will actually hurt the players confidence because it is indirectly saying to them .. "We dont think you can win unless we prepare these kinds of surfaces". If they prepared hard and bouncy pitches and we won 2-0 or 3-0 and had players in form ... that would be a real confidence boost heading into Australia.

I think its quite fair to say that this team would have won against the Pakistanis had there been bouncy green tops tops too. Our batting seems one level ahead of theirs. I would rather see my players go into an Aussie series with some centuries behind their name, rather than just having the experience of playing in conditions that are much harder.

Remember (as good as we did) that we didnt actually win in Australia' date=' we drew. Remember, heading into England this year we had 4 ODIs in Ireland and 2 4-day matches in England, so our batsman were quite prepared for the conditions for the Test series.[/quote'] True, and that is a valid point. The way i see it ,is that we have been winning consistently off-late and that should give our enough confidence to tackle any conditions.

[bharat297]

I hope you're right but there is a big difference between scoring centuries against the likes of Mohammad Sami, Danish Kaneria, Sohail Tanvir and an injured Shoaib Akthar on a flat wicket and scoring centuries against Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, and Shaun Tait on pitches that will enable them to bowl at 150+. Remember last year in 2 consecutive ODIs in Sydney and Melbourne, Shaun Tait hit speeds of 160+. Then we move to the quickest pitch in Australia in Perth.

[Chandan]

Bharat, Its absolutely outrageous to think that we should change the nature of our tracks just to be prepared for an overseas tour. Every country's pitches have their own specialities and that is what makes test cricket spicy. And you say that even if India lost a test series in order to prepare for the tour down-under, you'd have taken it. Why? Are home series of no importance? We have not defeated Pakistan since last 27 years in India. Is that not important to defeat them now? Why do you think that the tour to Australia should rule above the home series vs Pak? Please give me a valid reason--why? Also which country prefers to lose the test series at home in order to prepare for an away tour? Just two examples will do.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[The Outsider]

I can't remember the Aussies preparing turners in Australia to conquer the final frontier. But maybe they knew about the Nagpur curator.

[beetle]

Great post chandan... I feel the same.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Chandan]

we are like this only .... :embaressed_smile:

?? You mean Indian fans?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[bharat297]

Bharat, Its absolutely outrageous to think that we should change the nature of our tracks just to be prepared for an overseas tour. Every country's pitches have their own specialities and that is what makes test cricket spicy. And you say that even if India lost a test series in order to prepare for the tour down-under, you'd have taken it. Why? Are home series of no importance? We have not defeated Pakistan since last 27 years in India. Is that not important to defeat them now? Why do you think that the tour to Australia should rule above the home series vs Pak? Please give me a valid reason--why? Also which country prefers to lose the test series at home in order to prepare for an away tour? Just two examples will do.

Firsty, Australia had an away series in SRL and then had a home series in SRL (on reasonable turning wickets), heading into the India series. Secondly, who said we would lose this test series? Would a hard and bouncy wicket mean we would lose to Pakistan? Also, you mentioned playing to our specialties ... now I would say, outside of injury, that currently we have better seam/swing bowlers than spinners (besides Kumble). I talked about preparing hard and bouncy wickets and you all straight away thought we would lose. What does that say about our chances? Answer this question ... does anyone believe that if we would have prepared hard and bouncy wickets (like Australia) we would lose this series? If so, I'd really be interested to hear why

[Chandan]

Firsty' date=' Australia had an away series in SRL and then had a home series in SRL (on reasonable turning wickets), heading into the India series. [/quote'] Which series are you talking about? If it is 2004 series in India, then I can tell you that Aussies were coming after an off-season. They had been to SL in March in 2004 and came to India in October. And how is playing in Lanka 6 months back a preparation for India?

Secondly, who said we would lose this test series? Would a hard and bouncy wicket mean we would lose to Pakistan?

If you did not mean that then what did you mean by the following quote:

What I am saying is that this series (win' date='[b']lose or draw) proves nothing and does nothing for the team heading into the Australian series. .

It clearly means that you don't care about the result in the ongoing series, and even if we lose, you won't mind if we play on bouncy tracks to prepare ourselves for Australia! Or did you mean something else? What could that be?

Also, you mentioned playing to our specialties ... now I would say, outside of injury, that currently we have better seam/swing bowlers than spinners (besides Kumble). I talked about preparing hard and bouncy wickets and you all straight away thought we would lose. What does that say about our chances?

Pitches have their own specialities. I'm not talking about attack here. And India has its share of seaming track too--at Mohali and now at Dharamshala too. I didn't go on to say that we would lose playing on seaming or bouncy tracks. I was in fact taken aback by your comment that you would have preferred to use this series as a practice series for Australia no matter if we win lose or draw--as if the tour to Australia is the end of the world. It is just another series and that is how we should treat it. Just because we are touring Australia doesn't mean that we should try to only prepare ourselves for that without caring about the result!

Answer this question ... does anyone believe that if we would have prepared hard and bouncy wickets (like Australia) we would lose this series? .

No.

[bharat297]

Which series are you talking about? If it is 2004 series in India, then I can tell you that Aussies were coming after an off-season. They had been to SL in March in 2004 and came to India in October. And how is playing in Lanka 6 months back a preparation for India?

They also played them in June in a top-end series on relatively spin friendly tracks.

It clearly means that you don't care about the result in the ongoing series, and even if we lose, you won't mind if we play on bouncy tracks to prepare ourselves for Australia! Or did you mean something else? What could that be?

What I meant was that this series proves absolutely nothing. Wow, we racked up 600 on a flat track facing Sohail Tanvir's left arm spin ... god we're brilliant!!! However, if we prepared a hard and bouncy track, we would not only have won, we would have been prepared for the Aussie conditions. Then the series would have meant something. The reason I said win, lose or draw is that I meant that we will not improve as players (particularly as batsman), whatever the outcome, if we provide flat runbeds like this. Do you think Australia worried about the results of the CB series and the Chappell-Hadlee series prior to the ODI world cup? They focused on the bigger picture. In Tests, the closest thing to winning a world cup is to beat Australia in Australia.

It is just another series and that is how we should treat it. Just because we are touring Australia doesn't mean that we should try to only prepare ourselves for that without caring about the result!

Why not? Don't we want to know how well we have progressed over the past few years? The entire cricketing world will judge us based on our performance in Australia. They are the benchmark, it is up to the rest of the world to catch up. If we treat them as "just another team", we will get our backsides handed to us, and we will be humiliated. Back when the West Indies were world champs, the Aussies would spend months preparing to face them. Do you think they just turned up to the Carribbean and said , "Hmm, while we're here we might as well beat the West Indies" and then it just magically happened?

[Chandan]

They also played them in June in a top-end series on relatively spin friendly tracks.

So playing 3 months before at Cairns or Darwin is a preparation for tour in India? The other day while you were defending Badrinath you were saying that he did it on Australian pitches. So what different did badri find if pitches there are as good or bad as that of India? Anyway, I don't think Cairns or Darwin are similar to Indian pitches.

What I meant was that this series proves absolutely nothing. Wow, we racked up 600 on a flat track facing Sohail Tanvir's left arm spin ... god we're brilliant!!! However, if we prepared a hard and bouncy track, we would not only have won, we would have been prepared for the Aussie conditions. Then the series would have meant something. The reason I said win, lose or draw is that I meant that we will not improve as players (particularly as batsman) if we provide flat runbeds like this.

We are not playing here to prove anything. We are playing to win our first home series vs Pak in last 27 years. You think that is not important at all? If we'd not have won because we had our focus on a tour one month away, then shame on us! And which batsman is yet to improve? Apart from Jaffer and Karthik every batsman has had at least two australia visits and they'd have improved as much as they did now. Still, will Australia prepare low and slow tracks in their summer if they have to visit India in March, saying that their batsmen won't improve further on pitches which have nice bounce and ball comes on to the bat nicely, which won't be happening in India?

Why not? Don't we want to know how well we have progressed over the past few years? The entire cricketing world will judge us based on our performance in Australia. They are the benchmark, it is up to the rest of the world to catch up. If we treat them as "just another team", we will get our backsides handed to us, and we will be humiliated. Back when the West Indies were world champs, the Aussies would spend months preparing to face them.

I don't think the entire world would be so stupid to judge us only on the basis of our performance in Australia. England lost to them 5-0 yet they are the #2 test side in the world and the ICC ranking shows it. We are indeed doing only catch up to Australia but that doesn't mean that our performance in last two years count to zilch! When Australia lost to England in 2005, they were still the #1 team. Any one loss or victory in just one series can't be the basis of the judgement of a team's performance! Also, Aussies might have spent months prepararing to face WI, but I just can't see them manufacturing pitches like they had in WI and then playing a test series with another international side. These days, the itinerary is conjusted that forget about preparing for months, team is getting just one three day match to acclimatise!

[bharat297]

^ Your argument is flawed because the Australian batsman bat on pitches that provide a fair bit of assistance for pace bowlers, with extra bounce and carry, which really tests a batsmans technique out. So when they get to a flat run-bed, it is actually a step down (Spinning tracks are a different story, but Eden Gardens was not a spinning track either really). As far as a possible contradiction with the Badrinath argument goes, the pitches in Cairns and Darwin were spin friendly in 2004 and pace friendly in 2006. Just look at the bowlers that were picked and had success in both cases. Now as far as spin-friendliness goes, I still do not understand why we are doing this ... our spinners arent good enough to trouble most sides in the world anymore. So who are we really benefiting? Tell me what positives we can take out of this tour (Yes there is the joy of beating a depleted Pakistan side for the first time in 27 years). So all our batsman appear to be in form. However, how do we know that ... because they just smashed around Tanvir and Sami on a flat wicket? There was a discussion during the Cricket Show (a lunch-time show in Australia shown during Test match days) , and it was unanimous that the number one reason that teams struggle in Australia is that they do not accustom to the conditions quick enough. Nowadays teams only have 1 warm up game. Michael Slater said that back when he played, on some tours they would have 5 or 6 warm up games. So, since you have rejected my idea of trying to emulate Australian conditions and try to beat Pakistan in Australian-like conditions so that our batsman can sure up their techniques against pace bowling, how do you believe India should prepare for Australian conditons?