Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
The touring English cricket team has overtly complained about unplayable wickets that are unfit for being regarded as Test cricket class. A few years back, the touring South African side had something less charitable to say about the Nagpur wicket after they played the first test match. Let’s trace the root of such complaints, starting from the seventies. It was a known fact in those times, that touring cricket sides to India were well-taken care of by an informal Public Relations (PR) network that used to brief them about the Test venues where the support for the home side was very strong and required the touring side to go soft on the Indian batsmen.
Way back in 1972, the touring English side captained by Tony Lewis won the first Test at New Delhi and subsequently lost to India at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens and Madras’ Chepauk wickets. The matches played in Kanpur and Bombay ended in a tame draw. The next touring side to India, namely the mighty West Indies again defeated the home side at Delhi and Bangalore. They however, lost the matches in Calcutta and Madras that were known to be spinning tracks.
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In those early days, spinning tracks were considered a ready supply of oxygen for the home side. There were occasions on which despite this type of informal arrangement, Indian Test side lost miserably to the touring side. It includes a 3-1 defeat meted out to India by the touring English team in the late seventies and a 3-0 dubbing at the hands of the West Indies soon after India won the World Cup in 1983.
Subsequently, India entered a phase in which it totally dominated home series played against any touring side, be it South Africa, or England or New Zealand or West Indies or our neighbouring Pakistan and Sri Lanka for that matter. This phase implied that a victory on home soil was a given for the Indian cricket team. With a few exceptions that sparingly interspersed the home team’s fortunes, most touring sides were well-aware that defeating India in India will be a very difficult proposition. The closest India’s dominance on home soil came under threat was way back in 2001 when the touring Australian side meted out an innings defeat to the home side at Mumbai’s Whankede stadium and succeeded in imposing a follow-on in Kolkata’s Eden Gardens. Here too, the fortunes took a flip after India responded strongly and won the matches at both Kolkata and Chennai.
Post the commencing of IPL matches and exposures gained by young Indian players like Ramchandran Ashwin and the Pathan brothers, namely Yusuf and Irfan Pathan, Team India in India turned out to be a very formidable proposition for any touring cricket side. Consequently, when the 2011 World Cup that was to be played in the sub-continent came up, many cricketing experts including those from Australia predicted that Indians were the favourites to win the World Cup. While the prediction did come true, India’s Test record on their performance in foreign soils remained abysmal for a long time.
The point to be made is that when touring cricket teams blame the Indian curators for preparing unplayable wickets, the Indian cricket administration responds by saying, every cricketing nation prepares pitches that will favour the home side. Instead of countering this argument, it would be better articulated to say, Indian batsmen should learn to play well in seaming conditions and pace wickets and at the same time, touring cricket teams should be prepared to tackle India in India with their own stock of quality spin bowlers. This is the only way to ensure a level-playing field for all sides concerned.
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