India vs England | Ashwin's century exposes hypocrisy on pitch talk

R. Ashwin.

Fittingly, it took a top-class hundred by Ravichandran Ashwin, the bowler who got a five-for in the first innings, to silence all the critics who were making so much noise about the nature of the Chennai pitch.

Ashwin, perhaps, just wanted to tell the world what the fuss is all about the pitch? If he can score a ton with the help of tail-enders, English batsmen can certainly do better who are 1-0 up in this series.

However, this article is not about accentuating Ashwin’s batting prowess rather to highlight the hypocrisy of SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) countries’ experts who started criticising the pitch the moment England lost the toss and the puff of dust came off on the fifth ball of the match by Stuart Broad. England feared the worse. By the time Lunch could be taken on the first day of the match, England’s left-arm spinner Jack Leach (in the ninth over) and Moeen Ali’s dismissal of Virat Kohli also kicked up some dust.

Many England experts sensed that worst nightmares about Indian pitches were coming true. “It’s entertaining cricket as things are happening all the time, but let’s be honest this Pitch is a shocker. Not making any excuses as India have been better, but this isn’t a Test Match 5-day prepared Pitch,” tweeted former England captain Micheal Vaughan.

Unsurprisingly, they were also getting support from some of the Australians like former player Mark Waugh. The Australian tweeted that the pitch in Chennai was unacceptable at test match level. “You can’t have the ball going through the top of the surface on day 1 from the main part of the pitch. I.e. not from the footmarks.” Pat came the reply from an Indian fan. “Six wickets lost on Day 1, 15 wickets lost on Day 2 No, I am not talking about Chennai. Those numbers are from Adelaide 2020. Like Rohit here, Virat Kohli and Tim Paine had shown the skill required to survive on that pitch too. Don't remember a furore over that pitch.”

The new generation of Indian fans wants their team to be world beaters and expect them to conquer all the pitches across the world, but they are no longer apologetic about home advantage or home domination.

Of course, no one is arguing that this is an excellent pitch for the Test cricket, far from it. In fact, the pitches during India’s recent tour of Australia for red-ball matches were the ideal ones and especially the Sydney and Brisbane wickets where all results looked possible until the final session of the final day of the match. However, that kind of balance is not easy to achieve by the curators across the world because of contrasting weather patterns and different nature of soils.

Bizarrely, one of the respected cricket analysts in TV broadcasting Simon Hughes was so rattled that he went on to suggest that the host should be penalised for preparing such kind of pitches. “India should be docked WTC (World test Championship) points for this pitch. It’s a sandpit. Makes batting a lottery,” tweeted Hughes.

Arguably, pitches like Chennai are always better where there is drama in every ball than the batting paradises.

His former team mate Monty Panesar echoed the same view. “Why are people questioning the pitch conditions. Have a game plan with the bat and bowl. We producing turning wickets in county cricket, nothing wrong with the pitch,” tweeted Panesar who along with Swann was one of the heroes for England when they defeated India in India in 2011-12. That was the last time a visiting team won a series in India.

Arguably, pitches like Chennai are always better where there is drama in every ball than the batting paradises. Cricket lovers enjoy the same kind of moments of oohs and aahs where the ball seams, swings and bounces.

Another point which most non-sub continental observers fail to notice that there is no physical danger on such pitches. Remember the Johannesburg 2018 where it was physically threatening to bat on. “It’s not unplayable. It's a challenging pitch, and that's what cricket should be about. In the first Test, on the first two days, when nothing was happening, people were saying 'it's boring, nothing is happening. It's so easy to bat.' So, there has to be a bit of balance between what is said. You cannot be complaining all the time,” argued Sunil Gavaskar on host broadcaster Star Sports show before the start of play on Day 3.

Perhaps, the earlier generation (especially the one from 1990 to 2000 era) of Indian cricketers and fans used to get embarrassed by winning on the so called doctored pitches at home because they used o get thrashed in overseas matches in SENA nations. Not this Indian team or the fans of current generation since they have seen it on countless occasions how India not only refused to complain about pitches, but have been able to turn the tables against all odds starting from Leeds 2002  to Gabba 2021. In between, there have been many like the Johannesburg 2006 and 2018, Lord’s 2014 and Perth 2008.

They didn’t complain either during 2003 tour of New Zealand, Lord’s 2018 or Perth 2018 or the 2020 tour of New Zealand where both matches in Wellington and Christchurch finished inside three days and Indians were at the receiving end of pitches tailor-made for home team’s advantage.

It is almost a laughable observation that when the Asian teams fail in SENA, it is poor cricket and horrible technique.

Refreshingly, there is this new generation of fans from SENA countries who are not afraid in calling out the inherent bias and hypocrisy associated with spin-friendly pitches.

“We’re all English and Australian with how we look at cricket. The narrative on cricket comes from England. They wrote the laws, sent it to most of our countries, and detailed their own role in the sport to such a level that we all been touched by English cricket. Australian cricket’s path to moral authority was different. They dominated cricket in so many eras they became a step-parent to the game. It’s hard to ignore someone beating you all the time and loudly telling you about it,” Jarrod Kimbre argued beautifully in his article The bias against spinning pitches.