It was the sixth over of the Indore Test, and the first to be bowled by a spinner. Matthew Kuhnemann came on to bowl at India’s captain Rohit Sharma. It had already been an eventful morning for Rohit. Firstly, he had won the toss for the first time in the series, allowing India to bat first for a change. Next, perhaps, emboldened by the easy wins in the first two Tests, Rohit and co. had benched their premier fast bowler, Mohammad Shami. And then, in the very first over of the game, Rohit had been reprieved twice. The Australians didn’t appeal when he nicked the first ball of the match, and didn’t review a clear LBW off the fourth.
This was the sort of escape that batters may interpret as a sign from above, to buckle down and make the most of good fortune. Rohit seemed to read it differently; like a cat confident of nine lives, he trotted out of his crease to the last ball of Kuhnemann’s first over, attempted a swipe for six, missed by a mile and became the first of 20 wickets India would lose within two days of play. Australia lost 10 of their own in the same period, but held their nerve on the third morning to complete a remarkable win.
It came against the run of play — India had bossed the first two Tests, and were expected to win again. All the more, since Australia were emaciated by the absence of Pat Cummins and David Warner, and hopelessly short on confidence. And yet, the visitors overcame the toss to make it 1-2 with one Test to play.
India rarely lose at home — this was just their third home defeat in 10 years. However, it would be wrong to write off the Indore defeat as a blip. For while India have been impregnable at home, a few worrying patterns have emerged in recent times. Those patterns came under the spotlight thanks to the ragged pitch served up at Indore.
The Indore track was prepared at short notice after this Test was moved out of Dharamsala. The lack of preparation showed, in the quantum of spin and uneven bounce right from the start of play. Spinning tracks have been a staple in India Tests for a while now. The first two games at Delhi and Nagpur, too, were played on turners. But even by that standard, the Indore track was a travesty and the ICC has been swift to hand it a "Poor" rating.
The pitch talk should, however, not become a smokescreen to hide India’s failings. As Rohit Sharma confirmed in the post-game presser, the Indian team prefer such pitches and believes it offers them the best chance to win. The thinking isn’t unsound — in Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, India have an exceptional triad of spinners. The expectation that the trio will out-bowl their spinning opponents easily is a fair one.
The catch, though, is that India’s batters have lost the ability to bat against spin. Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy have only played 25 first-class games between them, and have likely never bowled on a pitch like this before. Yet, along with the experienced Nathan Lyon, they have been good enough to run circles around India. Like Rohit, Cheteshwar Pujara and Shreyas Iyer perished to bizarre shots on the first morning, even before the pitch’s misbehaviour could become evident. In the second innings, Shubman Gill reprised Rohit’s ugly hoick to once again gift Australia their first wicket.
And Indore was not an outlier — for a worryingly long time, India’s batting has been a hot mess. They have largely banked on runs from Rohit, the absent Rishabh Pant, and from Jadeja, Ashwin and Axar themselves. Rohit and the lower order had a rare simultaneous failure in Indore, and that’s all it took. Every Indian batter has looked vulnerable against spin. KL Rahul had already failed enough to be left out of the Indore Test. Virat Kohli has struggled in Test cricket for years together, and Pujara always seems to be a couple of bad Tests away from being dropped.
Back in the day, when batters lost touch, they could spend time in the domestic grind to regain touch and confidence. This, however, isn’t an option now — India’s top stars play international cricket and the Indian Premier League (IPL) all year round, and there is no space left in their calendars for the Ranji Trophy. Even if they did show up, the pitches at the domestic level are not quite the spinning sandpits they encounter in the Tests. India’s out-of-form Test batters have no option other than to fix their games real-time, while batting in internationals on these tracks.
On the evidence of Indore, Rohit and co. may want to rethink their affinity for such wickets. Their batters currently aren’t good enough to score on them, while their spinners are capable of winning games even on normal pitches.
In the long-term though, the travails of Test batsmanship are only going to get amplified more. India isn’t the only side struggling to put runs on the board. We have been in a bowling era for a few years now. It’s convenient to point to T20 techniques, treacherous pitches and a crop of great bowlers from around the world as the reason behind this era. While all of these are true to an extent, the real problem is that Test batters don’t have the time or the avenues to work on their batting. And that’s because of the crowding out of the cricketing calendar by T20 leagues and international cricket. For instance, between the end of the Australian summer series against South Africa, and this tour of India, Australia’s batters didn’t have a chance to play any first-class cricket anywhere. Steve Smith prepared for India by turning out at the Big Bash League (BBL) — Australia’s premier T20 league. His BBL outings made financial sense to Cricket Australia, even as it compromised his chances of succeeding in India. It was a compromise they were willing to make. It’s the same reason why the BCCI won’t mind having the IPL end just five days before the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) final.
Elsewhere, England seem to have figured out a practical template for Test batting in this era. They have flipped the conventional logic of Test batting, which was all about survival and scoring only when bowlers tired, or erred. England’s approach, code-named Bazball after their Kiwi coach Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum, involves batters attacking from the word go, scoring runs quick enough to make bowlers, pitches and time irrelevant. Bazball has been a resounding success so far, but the verdict is still out since it has not yet been tested in Australia or India.
Will Bazball work when England visit India next year? Will India themselves embrace elements of Bazball by then? We can’t wait to find out, but the answers will hinge on one key question — will India continue to prepare such ridiculous pitches?
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