Nagpur Test – A Substandard pitch or a Sporting turf?

The second test was completely washed out in Bangalore. All eyes turned now to the venue of the third test where test history beckoned India to be the first team in a decade to beat the Africans in a series away from their home grounds.  Trailing one-nil in the series, the South Africans had a massive task cut out ahead of them. Like a first rank student coming out of the examination hall beaming after answering all the questions right, the Indians strolled into Nagpur with all smiles knowing very well that they had something in their weaponry which the Proteas did not possess – Quality spinners. Unfortunately, the Indians also succumbed to the mediocre Proteas spinners and the Africans were destructively demolished by the better Indian spinners. Though the match was done and dusted in a matter of 3 days and Indians won the game hands down, the manner in which the pitch was prepared raised a lot of eyebrows and drew in a lot of flaks from the cricketing world for such a rank turner. The Indians winning against the Africans in Nagpur was more like a hefty, muscly and powerful school bully mercilessly beating to pulp a meek, timid and helpless kid!

The Indians were all out for 215 in their first innings on day 2 thanks to 2 gritty and very helpful 30s knock from Saha and Jadeja. What followed was a disaster of epic proportions much like how the Aussies folded up very cheaply for 47 against South Africa in South Africa, at least that was on day 2! On that fateful day, 23 wickets had fallen like nine pins and our Nagpur wicket gave stiff competition to Cape Town pitch by capping in 20 wickets on day 2 again! The 47 was scored in the Oz second innings unlike the 79 in the African's first innings. In fact, Michael Clarke had scored 150 odd runs in their first innings of that test match. The comparison was brought in as every home team prepares and lays a pitch that suits their needs to gain an additional upper hand yet without compromising on the element of sportivity. Everyone knows that South Africa plays spin badly just like how Indians are uncomfortable on seamy & bouncy conditions. 

Like how Pakistan starts shooting on kids when they innocently cross the LoC, all hell would break only when people cross the border! Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in Nagpur. It is perfectly agreeable when a pitch helps the home team. But, to see that our very own team succumbing to the gentle spin of Harmer and Tahir which escalated the pitch wars to be a World War 3! The entire cricketing fraternity took up to the Twitter Universe to rant and vent off their feelings on the diabolical nature of the turf which included the likes of Micheal Vaughan, Michael Clarke, Mathew Hayden, Glen Maxwell to name a few. However, Gibbs made a profound point when he pointed out that it's not wrong for a pitch that starts to turn right away from Day 1. A very good view which opposes the traditional way that a test match has been played till date: Day 1 - 1st session - swing, seam and fast bowlers. Day 1 - 2nd session to Day 3 - last session - batsmen. And Day 4 & Day 5 belonging to the wily spinners and skilled batsmen. However, Gibbs point of reference is very valid and pertinent for a pitch that is naturally allowed to turn from Day 1 and not doctored to behave in an artificial way. Much of the anger was directed at the fact that Nagpur's wicket was engineered beyond the permissible limits of play. No one refutes that being the Number one team in the world, the Proteas should have been equipped to play spin better mainly if they were playing in the sub-continent especially India . With tonnes of runs behind his back and bat, even Hashim Amla acknowledged that this was the toughest turf he had ever played in his life and it would have been even more miserable had they faced Kumble and Harbhajan on these tracks! Nagpur wicket was more a RETURNING pitch than a TURNING turf! Batsmen walked in and walked off the field in the blink of an eye.

As ever as the eternal saying goes "There are 2 sides to a coin"!! It is high time that every country produces a wicket that is even footed covering all aspects of the game - bowling as well as scoring runs instead of heavily tilting in the favor either for the bowlers or the batsmen. The beautiful nature of Test Cricket is already on the verge of  becoming extinct with the advent of T20s where the spectators are loving more of the fast paced and adrenaline packed action than the slow and patient version of the game that actually tests the skills and ability of a player. When people constructs such pitches in future too, the audience will surely lose their interest in the game thus sounding the death bell to strike for Test Cricket and then everyone can lament how the graceful gentleman's game had fallen from such great heights into a deeply dug grave for the sake of being result-oriented instead of  a sporting and hard-fought draw. Time is running out lest the score card should read all out for test Cricket!