Image Credit- PTI
If Rahul Dravid is to be believed, he has “as
little idea as anybody else” about how Indian pitches will behave.
Shrugging one’s shoulder, it should be interpreted with caution. Dravid is
going to be at the curator’s side once the Indian squad reconvenes in Rajkot
the following week.
“We know pitches in India will spin, but people
don’t like it because it turns from ball one,” Rohit Sharma said, cutting
through diplomatic verbiage.
Even though England may have travelled to India
expecting fancy tracks and the accompanying early puff of dust, we have yet to
witness that occur in the series. In addition to Olie Pope’s outstanding 2nd
innings score of 196, which separated the two teams in Hyderabad, both sides
scored 400 or more during the match. The pitch at Visakhapatnam took
increasingly less turn in the second Test.
It was assumed
that surfaces devoid of inexpensive wickets for spin would expose England’s
young spin unit. Another was an acknowledgement that, in such circumstances,
India’s batting lineup isn’t the greatest anymore. Things became worse because
of Virat Kohli’s absence.
“To be fair, there have been challenging wickets over
the last few years. And it’s been a bit of a challenge for some of our young
batsmen to adapt,” Dravid said after the Hyderabad defeat. “A lot of these guys
do play a lot of white-ball cricket and maybe don’t get a lot of time to get to
play a lot of first-class cricket. So they’re learning.”
The kind of opposition India faces is also taken into
consideration in all of this. This is not the terrified England team that
defeated them three years prior. If the pitches are harsh, England’s high-risk
cricket under captain Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum might steal
the show from India.
Both teams have thrown caution to the wind and realise
that this series will be closely contested, with no decision made before the
reverse singles. The mid-series break, however, gives the hosts an opportunity
to evaluate and re-adjust playing conditions—unlike in tennis.
Jasprit Bumrah is doing fantastic bowling. However,
his body has a limited capacity and in one of the three remaining Tests, at the
very least, he will need to take a break. When Bumrah is sidelined, India may
fall back on a turner since their other fast bowling backups are unable to make
an impact.
India would be concerned that England’s spinners have
outperformed the home team’s renowned spin attack on every count as they look
for ways to counter Bumrah.
As they replenish their energy, both teams will be
putting their thinking caps on. If the pitches start to flip, do Indian hitters
sans Kohli have what it takes to beat England? The counterargument to it is
that if Ashwin and Kuldeep have more support from the wicket, wouldn’t their
chances of producing those game-changing big-wicket performances increase?
Although Kuldeep bowled a strong first-inning spell at Visakhapatnam and Ashwin
made an impact in the second, it will be important to carefully consider the
risk to reward ratio.
So even as the team’s go in the rest and recreation
mode, the game won’t be far away from their minds. After all, there’s still a
lot of cricket to be played in this series.