Repeating Same Mistake: On India’s Humiliating Defeat against South Africa

Team India’s effort to use the home conditions to the fullest has miserably backfired as it faced a humiliating defeat in the first test match against South Africa at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. This is not the first time that team India had failed while trying to extract full advantages from familiar conditions; it was defeated in four of the last six test matches played on home soil with Gautam Gambhir as the head coach. In contrast, the Indian cricket team had recently drawn the five-match away test series against England. It simply proves the hollowness of the idea propagated by the present Indian team management to play on ‘rank turners’ to help our enviable spinning brigade. It seems that the present team management is not interested in winning matches by playing quality cricket but rather looking for a shortcut to success.

There is no denying that the Indian pitches help spinners more than the pitches in Australia or England due to its soil character. This is why the Indian pitches have always posed tough challenges against the visiting batters, who are more used to playing on fast and bouncy pitches. Even then, several foreign batters have performed well on Indian soils, showcasing their qualities. On the contrary, the greatest exponent of leg spin bowling in the modern era did not achieve much success on India soil. This shows that a cricketer’s individual class and form during a particular series are more important for success than the surface on which they are playing. Here, it may be mentioned that India’s achievements on home soil were made possible sporting as well as spinner-friendly tracks, not by the pitches where the ball will start turning from the very first over itself.

In their own wisdom, the team management has ignored this crucial aspect behind India’s success, showing very little or no faith on the batters who had performed well in England just a couple of months ago. Team management’s lack of faith in our batters was evident when India dropped a specialist batter to accommodate a spinning all-rounder. Moreover, a lower-order batter was promoted to fill the number three slot considered to be critical in any form of cricket. The move had almost made it certain that India could lose two to three wickets very early in the innings as any failure on the part of the opening pair would certainly expose the makeshift number three against the new ball.

This is why the management should stop paying too much attention to the surface but bank on the qualities of the wards to build a strong test team. Shubman Gill and other batters have already proven that they can face any sort of bowling irrespective of the surfaces. On the other hand, Jasprit Bumrah and others are capable of taking 20 wickets of the opposition on any surface. Thus, asking them to perform on under prepared pitches is wrong. Hope the team management will remember the lessons learnt from the Kolkata defeat.