Cricket's Spin Drain—The Real Cause

Fashion is a strange thing. It sometimes makes people look absolutely ludicrous, and then sometimes works wonders for them.

Some people do it to stand out from a crowd, others to blend in.

Cricket has had its own share. From Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji’s leg glance, to the famous one-legged hook of the Calypsos, to Roberts’ and Lillee’s jaw breaking bouncers, Richards’ flick off the pads, to Srikkanth’s slog sweep off fast bowlers, right up to Tendulkar’s straight drive, Lara’s cut, or Murali’s doosra and Shane Warne’s flippers, trends have come and gone from cricket grounds as often as they have in Milan or Paris.

The latest trend that is catching up with Indian cricket is one of those that cause emotions of amusement and sorrow, rather than awe.

The B.C.C.I. and all its curators have been running behind green grassy wickets for its grounds for almost four years now. Added peer pressure has been felt by them, what with visiting teams often complaining about the slowness and dryness of the wickets in recent times.

Instead of telling them to mind their own business, the Board has displayed rare tameness in allowing a complete overhaul of the pitches, and as a result creating havoc in domestic and senior cricket arenas.

Not only have the bone dry wickets of the sub-continent produced spin wizards like Bedi, Prasanna, Kumble, and even the likes of Quadir and Muralitharan from across the borders, it’s helped in molding some of the greatest players of spin bowling the world has set eyes on!

Vishwanath, Gavaskar, the Manjrekars, Vengsarkar, and more recently Ganguly, Laxman, and of course Tendulkar and Dravid have been the best batsmen against the slower turning deliveries on pitches which turn square from lunch on day one!

These are of course just the names of the most illustrious batsmen of our times. Almost all Indian batsmen at any level of cricket possess the skill which the western world would kill for!

While unusually green wickets have caused the national team to lose quite a few games unexpectedly—for example the Nagpur Test against Australia in 2004— which handed the World Champs their final frontier: a first series win on Indian soil in almost forty years—its impact at the junior level will hurt Indian cricket even more badly in coming years.

Not only is this madness squandering our spin resources, but also badly affecting the fast bowlers, and spoiling batsmen by providing them flat tracks, instead of the promised sporting ones.

The reason why this is happening is simple. The curators, if you can call them that, don’t have the skill required in preparing a quality, green, fast bowlers’ pitch. You often end up with slow and hard wickets which refuse to even break up like the traditional Indian ones, and as a result are a batsman’s delight all five days!

There can be no better example of this than the new pitch at Feroz Shah Kotla, New Delhi. It’s got low bounce, the ball is slow off the track, and the moisture doesn’t allow it to break up even on the last few days, and has resulted in quite a few dull games.

Not only are wickets like these reducing the spinners to bowling machines, they are adversely affecting the faster men as well.

With nothing but flat tracks to look out for, who would want to bend their backs, knowing that the result is going to be the same every time. Rather be a batsman!

Of course, some grounds, like Mohali, have achieved great results, with reputedly the best all-round cricket pitch in the country.

Offering bounce, pace, and swing on day one, flattening out during days two and three, and then breaking up to give the spinners assistance on the final couple of days, the pitch has been target of acclaim from even visiting sides. As a result, the curator, Daljit Singh, has been in hot demand all over the country.

Wickets at Mumbai have always been of the clayey sort, offering good bounce to fast bowlers and spinners.

Bangalore and Chennai are famous for giving assistance to spinners from very early on in a Test.

Kolkata does tend to offer the quickies some assistance, but has often turned up absolute turners.

What the Board and people involved at the highest level need to realize is that India, with its 130 years in the game, has some traditions which it has to live up to, traditions you can’t play with just because some ICC full members don’t like to play spin!

Sadly, the B.C.C.I. is hell-bent on eroding away this heritage of Indian cricket.

India’s greatest spin prospect since Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, made his international debut at just 17, nearly a decade after Harbhajan. Compare this to the difference of just six years between Anil Kumble’s debut a Old Trafford and Bhajji’s at Bangalore, and it shows you the true picture of how much quality spin bowling talent there is left in the country.

While there have been a few emerging from the main metros, like Powar and Amit Mishra, the spin bowling resources have almost completely dried up.

The IPL showed that one of the keys to success is to use home advantage completely.

The Mumbai Indians used the bounce and swing that Mumbai’s humidity offered completely in order to assist their frontline bowlers—Pollock, Bravo, and Nehra.

The case was similar with the likes of the Knight Riders and Kings XI.

Pollock made the statement prior to the tournament that even Man United wet their grounds so that the ball travels faster on the pitch. There can be no biggest example of a top team using home advantage.

If the Australians, South Africans, and Brits can prepare green wickets for their home games, why can’t India or Sri Lanka prepare bone dry ones for its spinners?

The term “under-prepared” amuses me more than anything.

Ricky Ponting was quite miffed with the wicket at Mumbai during the same ’04 series. A complete contrast to the pitch at Nagpur, the wicket had uneven bounce, and the Aussies didn’t know where the ball was going to end up! Tendulkar and Laxman were the only batsmen to make any runs (why isn’t that surprising?), while the Kangaroos folded up for less than a hundred in the last inning.

But how can you call such a track under-prepared? If at all, it’s been given all the preparation that one can give!

While a green pitch is left to take care of itself, with almost no mowing taking place on the final few days before a game, a turner like the one at Wankhede requires constant use of heavy rollers over a continuous period. If at all, it was the most over-prepared pitch!

At the end of the day, home advantage is something that is the right of every team. If the B.C.C.I. is willing to give it up in order to enjoy greater relations at the I.C.C., all in the name of producing quality fast bowlers, then India’s recent run will soon remain a distant memory.

Do you think India should go for the long haul and change the entire system in order to become a fast bowling power house? Or should we stick to our strengths and retain our tag as the fast bowling capital of the world?