Time to Celebrate Test Cricket's Diversity

I have been quite surprised to read the obituaries for test cricket that have been penned by numerous distinguished commentators. Apparently the 8-1 field that MS Dhoni set on the third morning of the final test was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Somehow, I don’t see it that way. To the contrary, that passage of play actually exemplified the intrinsic beauty of test cricket. It did exactly what test cricket is supposed to do: it tested.

Dhoni’s 8-1 field was bemoaned as too defensive. Defensive? The batsmen had half the ground to themselves! It was a high-risk, high-return strategy which, as any investor would know, is as aggressive a position as one can take. Sure the tactic would’ve initially surprised Hussey and Katich.

But they had more than enough time to respond. Did they do anything to try to seize the initiative? No. From India’s perspective, given their position in the overall series, it was a highly attacking move. To claim that they were playing for a draw with three full days left is fanciful.

The day provided some of the most absorbing test cricket seen in a long time. It tested the endurance of the bowlers, the inventiveness of the batsmen and the patience of both sides. In the end India triumphed, taking eight wickets for 166 runs. With two days left they were in the box seat to push for victory—one which they eventually sealed.

If captains frequently start setting 8-1 fields then will we see exactly what happened on the third morning in Nagpur? Highly unlikely. For one, to successfully bowl to such a field requires incredible accuracy and consistency from a bowler. It tests his skills of precision to the utmost degree. Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan were up to the test on this occasion.

The lines that they managed to hold for a sustained period of time were remarkable. Such consistency will rarely be possible. Even a slight error and the ball will rocket to some leg-side boundary, and before you know it the tactic has backfired spectacularly.

Second, necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. Test cricket tests one’s skills of adaptation. Batsmen adjust where they stand—outside or inside the crease, on leg or middle—depending on the situation: the field; the lines and lengths the bowler seems to be favouring; the bounce in the pitch; etc.

In a similar way, bowlers adjust from where they fling the ball. In recent times we’ve seen the mainstreaming of the doosra, the upper-cut and the reverse-sweep.

When, in 2001, Matthew Hoggard bowled to Sachin Tendulkar with an 8-1 field, Sachin adjusted. Twice, at the last second, he shimmied outside off and flicked the ball wide of wide mid-on for boundaries.

Nasser Hussain responded by moving a man into mid-wicket. So Sachin moved even further outside off and worked the ball even squarer. Despite this field and with the bowler bowling well outside off, Sachin scored 11 runs in an over. He passed the test. In Nagpur, Hussey and Katich were found wanting—they scored 42 runs in an entire session.

Later in the 2001 series Ashley Giles targeted a leg-stump line against Tendulkar. Giles "succeeded" in so far as he got the Little Master frustrated and had him stumped—the one and only time in his test career. The batsman, however, had scored 90 and India won the series.

When, in 2001, Shane Warne bowled into the rough outside leg at Eden Gardens with fielders patrolling the leg side, Laxman didn’t just pad away. He jumped even further outside leg and played cover drives from under short-leg’s nose. He adapted and he won the test.

However, in 2004, when the Aussies set "defensive" fields, with men on the boundary to slow the scoring rate, Laxman and co. failed to adapt. They failed the test and the Aussies won. I sense a pattern here: there are tests, and those that pass the tests win test matches. It’s funny how that works out.

As with fields, so with pitches.

For mine, the India-Australia dead rubber played on a Mumbai dust-bowl in 2004 presented a wonderful test of a cricketer’s powers. So did pitches during a India-New Zealand test series Down Under in 2002-2003, when fast bowlers ran riot and neither test match lasted 200 overs.

Yet commentators were widely scathing in their assessments of all of these pitch. Sure enough one wouldn’t want to see such pitches often, but isn’t variety the spice of life?

The ‘perfect’ pitch will take a match into the final session on the fifth day—offer something for the quicks initially, generate 300+ scores in the first innings, then offer more for spinners and generate 200-something scores in the second innings.

But wouldn’t it be a gigantic bore if all pitches were like this? Pitches, governed as much by the elements as they are by man, will vary over space and time and, perhaps once every couple of years, a match will happen to be played on a pitch so extreme that either 40 wickets fall in three days or eight fall in five.

Similarly, a fast-bowler bowling it wide outside off with an 8-1 field will remain an exceptional occurrence rather than the norm. But just the fact that there will be situations that lend themselves to such a tactic, for me adds to the magic and fascination of test cricket. It offers up new challenges, new tests, for the players. And these are the battles that one remembers.

Those that would pass normative judgments, that would seek to bring some sort of uniformity in conditions and support laws that stifle unorthodoxy, should think twice. The beauty of test cricket lies in its sheer variety, in its many and glorious uncertainties.