As is considered only natural in this country the
first Test between India and South Africa at Mohali ended within three days. India
beat South Africa by 108 runs today to take 1-0 lead in the four-match Freedom
Trophy Test Series. This result must have made Team India, the team management,
the cricket Board and all cricket mandarins extremely happy and all must be
praising the curator at Mohali no holds barred for creating such a wonder of a cricket
pitch. Yes, for India at home the ‘pitch’ along with the add-ons of other ‘conditions’
matter most rather than the competitive quality of the game or the application
of the Indian batsmen or the ‘strike’ capability of the Indian bowlers. This has
been the case for decades now. In the seventies or even eighties we still
remember the commentators saying Sunil Gavaskar coming up to open the bowling with fielders hitting the ball very hard to the ground
at every opportunity. This was to make the ball softer as quickly as possible
so that the ‘deadly’ spinners could start at the earliest. Such an approach
made the Indian fast bowlers redundant and Indian Cricket is suffering.
At the start of this auspicious Gandhi-Mandela
Series or the Freedom Series India lost the three-match T20 Series 2-0 before
they could finish their ‘experimentation’. The specialist short-format Captain
MS Dhoni was hauled up out of his domestic bliss to lead the team and he, as
usual, played his whims and fancies to the fullest—selecting or dropping players
at will without considering the amount of cricket played or current ‘form’,
changing the batting order at will and continuing to take his usual suspect
on-field decisions. India keeping up with the losing spirit through to the
Freedom ODI Series lost the first one day international match as the mindless ‘experimentation’
continued.
Order seemed to have been restored by the time the
second ODI that India won thanks to an individual effort by Dhoni. This made
him feel himself indispensable as he promoted himself up the batting order in
third ODI and lost again. The fourth ODI was the best of the series and was won
by India putting the series level at 2-2. But then, India cricketers, conditioned
by ‘conditions’, were hardly ready for the superlative cricket displayed by
South Africa throughout. The Indian bowlers gave away more than 400 runs in the
last ODI in Mumbai and lost the match and the series miserably. The frustration
was apparent as Team India director lashed out at the Mumbai curator for
creating such a pitch. But what was wrong in that pitch? It has been BCCI’s
policy to make lifelessly dry and slow pitches for the short format,
particularly the IPL, so that heavy fireworks from batsmen could attract more
crowds and so more money. What actually went wrong was that the Indian captain
could not win the toss and that Team India was caught in its own trap. Then of
course, the short-format specialist went back to domestic bliss making way for
the Test captain.
Team India could have been trapped at Mohali too had
they failed to win the toss or if top order batsmen Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara failed to put up consistent
scores in both innings. That the spinners feasted on the wickets is nothing to write
home about. The curator only deserves praise for presenting such an especially ‘under-prepared’
pitch that ushered in collapse after collapse from the two batting sides. Creating
such ‘conditions’ at home Team India could win the Test series going up in the
rankings, but how would they face the fast-paced pitches abroad.. The ‘redundant’
Indian fast bowlers could get some help abroad, but how the batsmen would
muster the art of tackling outside-the-off-stump fast stuff. They no longer
have the masters-blasters of yore who could fit in anywhere for the team and
many of whom lost out thanks to the obsession of a ‘young’ team As long as
cricket continues to be played here for money Indian cricket will continue to
suffer and heap more humiliations on the country.
