Criticism about the Motera pitch and the inability of the batsmen. India and England just completed a test in less than 2 days. That is 30 wickets were lost in a little over 25 minutes into the 3rd session on the 2nd day. It is even mind numbing to think that 2 top teams who are among the top three in the world currently, had completed a test in less than 2 days. Remember, it had world class batsmen in Kohli, Root, Stokes & Pujara alongwith some good youngters in Gill, Pope & Pant. These are good batsmen who are capable of playing a very long innings in Test cricket. Pujara himself is capable of playing more than hundred overs.
However, what happened was really shocking. All but 29 wickets fell to the spinners. Was the pitch poor? The jury is still out. Was the pitch difficult to bat? It certainly was. Was it really unplayable? Most definitely. Could the batsmen have applied better? They must have.
Ordinary bowlers made into world class spinners
The fact that some ordinary bowlers were made into world class spinners is reason enough for this pitch to be considered unplayable. Axar Patel who is nothing more than an ordinary tweaker as his first class record suggests ended up with 11 wickets for the game. Joe Root who is never known for his bowling picked up 5 for just 8 runs. To make matters worse, Joe Root even opened the bowling in India’s second innings. England had in their ranks James Anderson who has the highest number of wickets among the seamers, Archer who is a promising fast bowler and yet it fell on Root to open the bowling. This was probably the first time Root has ever opened the innings. That itself speaks a lot about the nature of the pitch. With the exception of Rohit Sharma, everyone else struggled for timing on that wicket.
Criticism about the pitch
As expected emotions have run wild across the cricketing world with some criticising the pitch for helping the spinners and others who found the pitch to be challenging.
David Lloyd was quite critical of the pitch
“I gave this pitch the benefit of the doubt on the first day but, I’m sorry, it was just as bad as the last one. And the big question has to be asked again of the ICC. Is this how you want the game to go? Tests finishing well under time, this one not even lasting two days? We need answers from Dubai but I’m not expecting to get a single one,” continued David Lloyd.
Yuvaraj Singh was even more critical
Finished in 2 days Not sure if that’s good for test cricket !if Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh bowled on these kind of wickets they would be sitting on a thousand and 800.
Graeme Swann, Geoffrey Boycott & Nasser Hussain were eventhough critical of the pitch they were mild in their criticism. Infact, they found lot of faults on the England’s squad selection and their inability to adjust to the pitch. Swann was spot on with his assessment.
“When India come to England, they play on green seaming decks and India don’t complain about it, they try and improve. Virat Kohli worked his socks off to make sure his game could cope with Jimmy Anderson on a nibbling wicket. England will have to work their socks off to cope with Ashwin and more importantly Axar Patel,” added Swann.”
Where are the batsmen?
All of these are perfectly valid. However, should the blame entire be on the pitch? I certainly think not. The batsmen from both the teams must bear equal responsibility. Modern day batsmen are brought on a string of batting friendly conditions that they are unable to play for time. The limited overs format which most of the players from both the teams play, is one of the culprit. It allows a batsman to hit through the line without worrying about the ball going into the hands of the slips who are non-existent.
Added to that, the pitches are so flat that even top quality bowlers are treated like club level bowlers. Such batsmen who are brought up on such flat surfaces when they come across a pitch that is challenging, they really struggle. They stand exposed in front of everyone. Their ego is brought down to the earth. They become ordinary mortals. Statistics take a walk. These batsmen are unable to play a defensive game over a long period of time and wait for the bad ball to score runs.
Ofcourse, one requirement to play for a long period is good defensive technique. A majority of the modern day batsmen certainly lack that. Also, with most of the teams, international or state level, hardly have one spinner in their team and batsmen are as such not used to play spinners all that well even on a surface that does not help them leave alone one which helps spinners immensely.
Yes the pitch was horrible but the batsmen are also to be equally blamed. They cannot hide behind the fact that the pitch was the reason for their downfall.
Dennis Amiss puts it beautifully
“The modern batsman seems to think you have to hit your way out of trouble,”
We used to think you play your way out of trouble”
These are golden words that every current batsman must stick in their bedroom wall.
On such wickets, the key is to frustrate the bowlers. There was an inkling of this in the 2nd innings when India bowled when Ashwin showed a little bit of frustration because he wasn’t getting wickets whereas Patel had already got 3. It showed in his lack of control and he went for more than 4 per over in his first 10 overs. It shows that even on wickets like this, if the batsmen can frustrate the bowler, runs are to be had.
What about the Indian batsmen?
Indian batsmen were once known as the master of spin. They always were fleet footed in that they will always go down to the pitch of the ball of bat effortlessly against spin. All of that has changed over the last couple of decades. Even the hallowed 5 of Sehwag, Sachin, Dravid, Laxman & Ganguly were good but weren’t great when playing on such surfaces. The current batsmen are even worse. They are almost clueless against the turning ball. Look at the success enjoyed by bowlers like Moeen Ali, Mendis and a few others.
This is primarily because all the Indian batsmen have stopped playing Ranji cricket. Most of the Indian batsman play for India after having played just a couple of years in Ranji. As a result of that, they have forgotten the art of playing spin. This shows in the way they struggle against spin in any condition. Leave alone a spin friendly one. If they are 2-1 ahead now in the series, that is due to the inability of the England batsman and not because of the Indian batsmen.
The BCCI must make it mandatory for all the Indian players to play atleast 5 Ranji games every year. Only this will help them to first improve and not lose their ability to play spin. Also, the Indian team cannot and must not rely on such surfaces to win games. If they want to be a world beating team, they must be capable of winning in any surface.