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Talking about pitches at home annoys Indian players. The mocking cliches that are used to characterise turning tracks—dustbowls, “rank” turners, and wrestling pits—are partially to blame. They don’t want a three-day finish on a green seamer to be viewed as being better than a three-day Test on a turning surface.
Nevertheless, after having their cake, the Indian cricket players also desire it by claiming they have no influence over pitch preparation, even though they frequently micromanage the procedure to the annoyance of the ground crew. Three of the five locations that created “average” pitches exclusively for India matches and one right before India arrived did so even during the 2023 “ICC” ODI World Cup in India.
One could argue that getting a competitive edge in professional sports is perfectly acceptable. Groundskeepers are there to create surfaces that aid the home team in winning, not to create perfect pitches. This occurs almost everywhere, with the exception of Australia, where there is proof that a chief groundsman can reprimand a captain who is interfering.
You hope that the Indian team’s incessant desire for spin-friendly surfaces is a professional, calculating decision rather than an emotional response to the whitewashes in Australia and England, which prompted the players to start requesting extreme turners.
One may argue that India’s home advantage was really lessened by the pitches they used to play New Zealand in Pune and Mumbai.
Four of India’s seven home Test losses over the past 12 years have been on incredibly favourable conditions for spinners. Of the other three losses, one required an exceptionally fortunate innings from Ollie Pope in Hyderabad, while another included an unusual weather occurrence that resulted in excessive seam on the first morning in Bengaluru.
India appears to have been alarmed by the third loss, which occurred in Chennai in 2021 when Joe Root took full responsibility for batting first. Since then, they have increased their demands for excessive turn from the beginning by twofold. This outcome appeared to support MS Dhoni’s hypothesis that on surfaces that become huge right away, the toss is less important. Another factor was the urge to get as many World Test Championship points as possible from home tests.
It took three hours for the Mumbai pitch to give India’s spinners a significant turn. In comparatively easy conditions, the three hours are equivalent to 100 runs. India had hitters who could overcome this disadvantage if they lost the toss for a long time, but they don’t seem to do so anymore.
India bridges the gap between their great spinners and the visiting ones, who now have to maintain their ability and control for far shorter periods of time, by requesting and receiving pitches that turn from day one and become increasingly challenging to bat on.
Joe Root, Mitchell Santner, Todd Murphy, Tom Hartley, Matt Kuhnemann, and Shoaib Bashir are the six visiting spinners who have recorded their first five-fors in Test cricket in India since 2020. Helping close the gap between their abilities and what R Ashwin does with the ball in the air or Ravindra Jadeja’s relentless accuracy over extended periods of time seems contradictory. For instance, near the end of a long season, you may appreciate the need for an extreme turner, but not while the bowlers are fresh.
When batting turns into a lottery at home, India’s hitters’ average drops significantly against spin. For instance, on fields where spinners have averaged more than 24 wickets per game since 2017, Virat Kohli has averaged 90.25 against spin; on pitches where spinners average less than 24 wickets per game, that average drops to 20.13.
India deliberately chose to play on what was available to them in Test cricket under Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma, and they persisted in doing so even after losing the opening Test match against England in early 2024. They prevailed 4-1 in the series. But for some reason, India’s reaction to the Bengaluru loss to New Zealand under Gambhir and Rohit has been harsh.
India would have probably won the last two Test matches if they had won the toss in Pune and Mumbai. The reason Dravid and Rohit wanted to play on regular pitches was because they lack the batting quality to offset the disadvantage of losing the toss, which gives the opposition almost three hours of good batting conditions before the ball starts to do all sorts of things.
On pitches where spinners average more than 24 per wicket, India has won 16 Test matches, lost three, and drawn five since 2017. On extreme pitches, they have won 10 and lost four. When they lose the toss, the numbers change to 6-2-3 and 6-3. The distinction between bravery and gambling appears to have blurred at some time throughout.