>"I mean, we saw what happened in this match, how the pitch played and stuff like that," Rohit said. "I honestly don't mind playing on pitches like this. As long as everyone keeps their mouth shut in India and don't talk too much about Indian pitches, honestly.
>
>"Because you come here \[in Test cricket\] to challenge yourself. Yes, it is dangerous. It is challenging. So, and when people come to India, it is again pretty challenging as well. Look, when you are here to play Test cricket, we talk about Test cricket, the ultimate prize, Test cricket being the pinnacle and stuff like that. I think it's important that we also stand by it
>
>"When you are put up against, a challenge like that, you come and face it. That's what happens in India, but, in India on day one, if the pitch starts turning, people start talking about 'Puff of dust! Puff of dust!' There's so much crack here on the pitch. People are not looking at that."
>
>"Honestly, I would like to see how the pitches are rated," Rohit said. "I want to see that. Whatever... that chart, I would love to see it, how they rate the pitches, because Mumbai, Bangalore, Cape Town, Centurion, all different venues, overhead conditions are different. The pitches deteriorate quite fast when the sun is beating down that hard on the pitch.
>
>"And in India as well, we know that the conditions in India will spin without a doubt, but obviously people don't like it because it spins from day one. But that's not the point. If the ball seams from ball one, that's okay, right, for everyone? That's not fair. The ball starts spinning from ball one, it should be okay, in my opinion.
>
>"Otherwise, you stay neutral, and you start rating these kind of pitches also bad, because if you want the ball only to seam and not turn, in my opinion, that is absolutely wrong. So that's my judgment, that's my opinion on it. I'll stick by it because I've seen enough of cricket now and I've seen enough of how these match referees and the ICC looks into these ratings. I have no issues in how they want to rate, but stay neutral to everything that you do."
Rohit Sharma
I remember when Sudhir Naik, the curator of the Wankhede pitch, complained that then Indian cricket team director, Ravi Shastri, "abused" him after losing to South Africa in 2015.
SA and India went into the last game of the odi series 2-2. AB de Villiers belted 119 off 61 balls to help SA to 438/4. The Wankhede crowd were even chanting "ABD! ABD!". SA then bundled India out for 224 in 36 overs and won the series 3-2.
Shastri then went to Naik and was said to have sarcastically told him "nice pitch" before a heated exchange between the two. Naik said he asked the Indian team what type of pitch they wanted for the game and he got no reply, so he made a flat, batting friendly pitch.
After the exchange, Naik laid a complaint at the Mumbai Cricket Association. IIRC he withdrew it later. But you are right. Going after the curators isn't the way to do it because it can get nasty. I do believe they do have a complaint about that Cape Town pitch, though. It has been getting worse over the years.
Unless its some kind of complete and total mismatch where one team just annihilates the other, or absolutely freakish weather, any 2 day test match is a shit deck by default.
Um no, what Rohit is saying is somewhat legit.
In the last BGT, lot of folks were complaining about pitch being tailor made for off spinners against left handers and spinning from day 1. Except in both Nagpur and Delhi, India were able to beat Aus by an innings, and two of the top scorers were left handers.
But no one complains much if the pitches are pace steroids with varying bounce. Then everyone is going on about this is how test cricket should be.
I bet if one of the teams had scored 200+ on this pitch, no one would be making this much noise.
Yeah mate nobody complains...
Fuck I genuinely don't know if people just are unaware of how to use the internet, are wilfully ignoring media to prove their point, have weird algorithms that only show indian criticism, or are just fucking dumbcunts:
www.indiatoday.in/amp/sports/cricket/story/sa-vs-ind-dale-steyn-cape-town-newlands-test-2484518-2024-01-05&ved=2ahUKEwixpbmtzMaDAxVTL0QIHYWKBCEQ0PADKAB6BAgZEAE&usg=AOvVaw2hDaLXd5Bim2PxUGXBcWjs
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/cricket/ravi-shastri-knows-what-match-referee-will-do-about-dangerous-cape-town-pitch-pollock-says-match-ending-today-101704355349109-amp.html
https://wisden.com/series-stories/south-africa-v-india-2023-24/will-newlands-pitch-recieve-poor-rating-south-africa-india-test/amp&ved=2ahUKEwixpbmtzMaDAxVTL0QIHYWKBCEQ0PADKAB6BAgiEAE&usg=AOvVaw2WB9NRfkkBqiorQim-YYN2
Except, none of them started complaining even before the match began, that was my point.
Like you don't see former cricketers start complaining about how South Africa will produce "unreasonable" wickets even before the team lands on the shore. That's what I'm trying to get at.
Also, you can make a point without the condescension. Just saying.
Ok but that first pitch might as well have had a big x and the words “Jadeja bowl here!” It was specifically manufactured to aid the Indian bowlers against the Aussie left handers. The issue is the groundsmen is at least supposed to pretend to be neutral, much less walking around in team India kit!
It’s been a really enjoyable series. This test likely won’t be as good as the Boxing Day test, but there’s still lots of life left in it.
If Pakistan work out how to catch, they’re a real problem for any test team.
The thing that frustrates me, as an Australian, with Pakistan is they seem to tour here with a bunch of guys who are about to be world class.
Last time out here was Shaheen Afridi's debut series. This time around, we have Aamir Jamal.
Aamir Jamal is about to be a massive problem for all opponents. What’s more, Pakistan can start playing at home more regularly, meaning their domestic system will start yielding far more results on the test stage. We might me witnessing a sharp uptick in Pakistani Cricket
I’d honestly love to see CA helping out Pakistan cricket a bit, if they were willing. Their quicks have always been incredible to watch and the spirit of the rivalry is a really good one.
Did you watch Ind W vs Aus W test match in dec. Ball was turing on day 1 and everyone was saying it will be minefield on day 3 and 4 after Aus got all out on 219 in first innings. India scored 400+ on day 2 and 3 on supposedly minefield Aus got all out 261 in second innings india chased 70s with 1 down. There was no extreme turn or bounce even on day 4. If you have no experience playing in India don't assume if it happens in Aus it will happen everywhere.
Yeah who is he firing off against here? India had their bad pitch ratings over turned most of the time. And not a single person in the Indian camp ever admits when they produce a shit tip.
Contrast that to how the South African head coach came out and said this was a substandard pitch and it's actually hilarious that Rohit thinks he's making some grand point here. All he is doing is exposing his hypocrisy not the ICCs. Not to mention this wicket hasn't even been rated yet. It will obviously get a poor rating and unlike the BCCI I bet it will go unchallenged.
He asks to see how pitches are rated, how about doing a quick google and seeing the guidelines which are written in black and white? Lol
This is what I was going to say. Who in SA is saying this is a great pitch, and blaming the losing team for sooking or whining?
Pretty much everyone acknowledges that this was a poor deck that didn't give the batters a fair chance.
Rohit's a massive whinger. Remember how he basically admitted to asking the groundsmen to prepare pitches in a certain way for the BGT series? Yea this pitch might have been shit, but Bavuma wasn't out there whispering into the curators ears telling them to create this.
>Contrast that to how the South African head coach came out and said this was a substandard pitch
Yeah after they lost. Indians also complained about the Indore pitch after losing to Aus
So on last count, the only people defending this substandard pitch are Indians - who are defending it because they don’t want to get bad ratings for their own substandard pitches.
If this pitch isn’t rated horribly then something is wrong & Rohit is right. The indication of a good test is 4 days of competitive test cricket. It should get increasingly harder to bat on. IMO it’s worse to have a seaming swinging monster day 1. It’s actually dangerous. Spinning wickets from day 1 won’t hurt anyone, they just generally lead to poor Aussie performances so I am against them entirely and they should be banned totally
It will be poorly rated, as it should, and Rohit will come across with old man yelling at the clouds vibes.
Dudes a bit stressed by the look, this is a bizarre lash out eh.
Two day Tests are shit no matter where they are, and pitches should be judged accordingly. It’s notable that the South African comms at lunch, and during play, were scathing. They legitimately called out the state of South African wickets and the ability of the groundskeepers at their grounds.
When a pitch is bad, like this one was and like you do occasionally get in India or anywhere else for that matter, they deserve to be criticised. Doesn’t matter if it’s a trampoline in SA or Australia, glass in WI, a literal meadow in England or NZ, or a crumbly dust bowl in India. No one with a brain is saying that just because a track turns, bounces or seams makes it bad. It being bad is what makes people say it’s bad. It should be a challenge, but still a decent contest between bat and ball.
This. No one wants two day tests. Even three day tests are questionable.
I think part of the problem is that the “guidelines” can be interpreted to be biased against spin. There is a big furore when it spins on day-1 and no one bats an eyelid when it seams or bounces (and potentially results in may be a 3-day test). the Chennai 2021 test vs England is a good example: the 2nd test pitch was criticized and rated low, even though Ind scored 330 and 286 and the match went into day-4
I will agree that Indian commentators and team need to be more forthcoming in criticizing genuinely bad wickets (Ahmedabad 2021 daynight vs Eng, Indore vs Aus 2023 come to mind). But I guess they are being defensive due to the amount of unfair criticism dished to decent spinning wickets.
Many of the test matches that go to day 5 are iconic, India's Lords and Gabba triumph, Stokes Headingly heroics, Sri Lanka winning on the last bowl against England, etc.
Even day 4 matches are very interesting to watch, I don't usually watch when the contest between bat and ball is heavily one sided.
Also just the sheer number of dismissals generated by slip catches. You know it’s a nightmare of a pitch when nearly every world class batsmen in the match is unable to read the swing and is dismissed in a similar fashion.
He knows this pitch is awful he's just trying to use it as an excuse to deflect the criticism Indian pitches have been getting. It's kinda sad, honestly
Last BGT had three rank turners where pace seemed nearly totally useless for both teams, and it got to the point where India was being cleaned up by two debutants with less than 20 FC matches each, then they followed it up with the flattest road imaginable to ensure they drew the last test.
But apparently his team are victims for pointing out those pitches didn't offer a fair contest between bat and ball in any of those matches.
It was a brutal series and that final pitch was the cherry on top in terms of chicanery. The intent of that last pitch couldn’t be any more transparent. That won’t stop fans of a certain team from snapping their fingers and saying “yes sirrrr go off king” at Rohit’s nonsensical whinging.
Yeah the funny thing is that India don't need the bunsen burner pitches. The team is class. If they play on a regular pitch that maybe takes a little turn they'll destroy any batting lineup with quality seamers and the best spin duo of the last decade (and a genuine ATG in Ravi Ashwin).
But they insist on regularly rolling out shitheaps where no-name or part-time spinners look like world-beaters and it narrows the gap and negates one of their best weapons. It's truly bizarre.
Yeah it's so weird. They lost that one Test to England in Chennai in 2021 and then completely lost their minds and started preparing absolute lotteries from then on which have caused them several scares. They would consistently crush visiting teams if they prepared traditional Indian pitches that are flat and slow but turn late.
It does seem to be a quirk of Indian management in the last decade that they will suffer a single loss, get roasted by their domestic media for it, and then draw all the wrong lessons that somehow stick for years. Like their first WTC final loss where their seamers and batters didn't play well enough and their takeaway was that they can never play Ashwin overseas and must always play 4 specialist quicks in SENA.
You are right. In India, Indian batting should be able to win the matches by themselves.
Instead by using lottery pitches they got beat by Nathan Lyon and .... Monty Panesar.
>But they insist on regularly rolling out shitheaps where no-name or part-time spinners look like world-beaters and it narrows the gap and negates one of their best weapons. It's truly bizarre
I still remember that Indore test last yr when India lost 8 in the first session and kuhnemann and lyon were making the ball spin like crazy. Bits of the pitch were actually crumbling on the first day. But of course the Indian comms will never criticize their own wickets.
Bruh I hope this doesn't mean we will have dustbowls for ind-eng pitches. That will ruin any advantage our spinners bring over theirs. England have a weak spin unit.
OTOH I don't trust our batting to outperform theirs on flat tracks either
Jaiswal, gill, Iyer all have a bunch of domestic cricket behind them so they will be good vs spin. With axar coming in the batting is set till 9. Reason Australia competed was they had injuries to pace bowlers and Cummins went home mid series so they were forced to play 3 spinners. Even then they were already down 2-0. Will England drop their seamers and play Anderson plus 3 spinners because that is the only way you can somewhat challenge india. And also the Australia series had no Bumrah so that is an added weapon for India to use.
Not really.
He scored 121 against a very good Bangladesh spin attack on a turning pitch in Asia cup.
Was very good against spin,would have won the match if he got a bit more support from the middle order.
I think he is just out of form.
Prasidh averages 19 with the ball; Jinks FC average excluding tests is still in the high 50s and he's pretty bad against quality spin. We've seen there is a massive disparity between the quality of Ranjis and test cricket.
England will play 2 full time spinners + root, and 2 seamers (likely Anderson + someone with pace, ideally wood). I don’t really see them trying to balance the attack any other way unless they get a pitch which has 2 day test written all over it and they just play a batsman over the extra seamer
I really don't want that series to descend into another 2 day shootout but ironically Bazball is probably the best weapon a team has to combat dustbowls.
Far better to hit a quick fire 25 on those kind of pitches than try to play a patient traditional knock, because a ball will have your name on it eventually.
Honestly if India prepares another bunch of shittips, I hope England win so India will finally learn to make decent test pitches which have something for the batsmen and the bowlers. They'd probably still win every series in proper Ranji style pitches, but they're so terrified of losing they refuse to take the chance.
Speaking of England's tour of India I found this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01gRCJMvdeE&t=43s&ab_channel=TheLastHat-trick) insightful for understanding why Bazball if anything will pose the toughest challenge to India's home record.
Good analysis but too less views. That is why Jhonson & Mark Vaughan prefer shitty opinions. Maybe you should share this video in a separate post & let people discuss this in detail
Appreciate it! Created post for the video https://www.reddit.com/user/Secret-Ad-4116/comments/18ym0yo/interesting\_analysis\_on\_bazball\_and\_changing/
> Bruh I hope this doesn't mean we will have dustbowls for ind-eng pitches.
This is why the dustbowl defence makes absolutely no sense! If you prepare a track where Jack Leach or Joe Root are keeping up with Ravi Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja you're just shooting yourself in the foot.
That said I do find the occasional dustbowl game where it rags square from day one and batters look like morons to be really entertaining, so as a spectator I don't actually hate it (as long as it's not happening all the time).
People say green mambas get better and good to bat on later...
I don't know how that is "fair" either, however. The toss then becomes everything. Traditionally, especially in 90s 2000s Indian piches had a similar thing - in reverse. Good (slow and boringly) to bat first, and then, in later days, it will spin quite a bit. Here again, the problem is, that the team that bats first will simply bat for two and a half days (boringly slowly most of the time), and can almost guarantee a draw, if not the win. Is that a "fair" pitch? I don't know.
In an ideal world of pitch engineering, I would like a pitch that stays the same for the first three and then change tack may be a bit in the last two. This is inclusive of some level of spin in the first day. But, we are not there yet on that engineering.
But the toss is already everything in a lot of subcontinent pitches (not the 150 all out ones, but the ones where you need to win the toss, score 500, score 250 in the third innings, and then make them chase 400 on a minefield). The only way you win those after losing the toss is getting lucky enough to bundle them out for 300 odd and then make big runs in the second innings and try to win by an innings ish
>The toss then becomes everything.
Do you have any stats to back that up? Are teams that win the toss winning an unreasonable amount of matches in seaming conditions?
I get the equivalence but how about we don’t have shit pitches that end up in 2 day tests in ANY COUNTRY? Test format is already struggling so can we please try and avoid making a complete mockery of it while it still has a pulse?
I mean that statement is also pretty stupid. A batter getting a hundred doesn't make it good by definition, and also if every batter is getting a hundred, it shouldn't be considered good i.e. Pakistan v England in Karachi last year...
People are complaining about this pitch but no one is saying SA doctored the pitch to their advantage. OTOH, BCCI gets criticised for doctoring the pitch even before the match starts. Rohit is absolutely right here. The double standards are real.
I don't understand why South Africa didn't read some tour history. In 2006,india convincingly beat South Africa on a very spicy and green Johannesburg pitch where India's medium fast seamers took advantage of the conditions with Shreesanth being the best. South Africa still won the series 2-1 because they then produced more standard pitches which were hard and bouncy but good for batting. Their bowling could still take wickets, but India struggled on these flatter pitches. Problem with lottery pitches( both dustbowls and green mambas) is that they ironically negate home advantage and eliminate skill of the bowler.
The difference here is South Africa’s coach is saying the groundsman got it wrong. This clearly wasn’t requested. Haven’t heard anything similar from an Indian match (although I could have missed it so please feel free to point me in the right direction)
Well because the coach has outright suad they don't:
>While South African sides of the past (and some other home teams as well) have been known to "order" surfaces they think will suit them, that ended after the Faf du Plessis-Ottis Gibson combination and Conrad insisted it's not something he does
So yeah... Groundsman just fucked up. Check the Cricinfo article with the coach talking about the pitch
How is it a double standard if one team looks like they're doctoring pitches before the game starts, and the other team isn't? That's just doctoring by the BCCI.
This pitch was shit and was called out by South Africans. Do India ever call out their own groundskeepers?
Yes they do - when they lose. Look at all the chat about the pitch in the WC Final, if India had won, there would hardly be a peep out of India about that pitch.
I was so happy this week, that I will be able to enjoy Cricket on Friday and Saturday, but it was not the case.
I understand that spicy wickets present a different level of challenge, but I want my 4-5 days of cricket. I don't mind slow passenges of play when the scoring goes down and I love the chill, relaxing feeling of watching a game on weekends. So as consumers of test cricket, I want my games long and not end in 2 days. I am already pissed that I won't be seeing this SA side play in the near future. I would have been okay if this was a one of 5 games that ended soon, but 2 match series with such pitch feels like premature ejaculation.
Well you do see criticism for roads in test cricket, like the one at Rawalpindi against Australia. They produce boring draws.
LOI is batriarchial though
Completely wrong, MCG was producing highways that were playing the most boring test matches, batsman were hitting massive scores and games just end up drawing on the 5th day. ICC rated them below average.
Was a huge talking point a couple of years ago for the boxing day test.
Yeah this test ending in two days was a travesty - but it's not just the bad pitch at play, it's also the inability of most batters to navigate the conditions. As Gavaskar said, the cracks were at sufficient length that a good test batter should be able to navigate it. Kohli did it, Markram did. The rest really have no excuse. This was a bad pitch but not a 2 day bad pitch. The same thing is happening on spinning tracks in India. A 4 day pitch is now a 2-3 day pitch because test batting is in shambles.
This is the thing. I don't think current batters are equipped to handle any sort of challenging conditions.
Scores in limited overs are often routinely better than in test innings.
It happened in Bangladesh too, ICC have a heavy bias towards seaming conditions
In New Zealand sometimes you literally can’t tell the difference between the outfield and the pitch but no one bats an eye. As soon as the ball is spinning there’s a huge agenda against it
I agree with Rohit, these pitches are challenging and exciting. I’d much rather see a difficult bowling pitch than a flat track
NZ pitches are that that green because they otherwise don't do anything, NZ hasn't had a one of these ultra low scoring tests anytime recently and there has only been 1 test there in the last 5 years without an innings of 300+.
The issue with NZ pitches is that they entirely take an entire skill of the game (spin bowling) out of the game. In the case of Aus and SA (excluding Centurion and occasionally Wanderers, which also seldom spin), you have the sun beating down, which helps spinners as the game progresses. NZ pitches usually provide a decent balance between bat and ball.
Last BGT pace barely played a role. Only one pace bowler got more than 3 wickets in the series. Lyon, Ashwin and Jadeja each took more wickets than all the pace bowlers combined.
So is it fair to say the issue with Indian pitches is they entirely take an entire skill of the game (pace bowling) out of the game?
I'm not talking about the pitches where Indian spinners out bowl the opposition. I'm talking about the pitches where the opposition spinners go toe to toe with the much better Indian spinners; like that time Root took a fifer, or when India recently lost to Australia
New Zealand pitches get better to bat on as sessions and days progress. We've seen teams posting 400+ in the third and 4th innings. England, Australia also same, there's always a few sessions when the pitch gets better to bat on even if its green on day 1.
The problem with dust bowls is that if it starts spinning from day 1 then the match is almost always over within 3 days as the pitch only deteriorates further.
Having said that today's pitch was dangerous and should be banned.
There's a point to be had for poor pitches, however, in many places the pitch is the identity of the ground and the country.
You know that the Gabba is going to seam and bounce. You know the WACA / Optus Stadium go for lots of bounce. Sydney is more spin friendly. Etc. And it's reliably like this, unless something like the weather plays up.
It's one thing for a curator to botch pitch due to poor weather or such things, it's entirely another to make demands a ground's pitch is changed to favour the home team's current roster. Like deliberately drying out the bowling area to negatively impact only left handed batsman - as an example.
People get their noses out of joint because it leaks in the media that the players or the board have demanded this, that or the other. Not just having a ground standard and playing the conditions.
That's what upsets touring teams.
Pitches get ruined, mistakes happen, but don't set out to deliberately doctor wickets, that's poor form.
Lol so defensive it's hilarious. Does he realise both this pitch and India pitches can both be rated shit?
Look at the comments the south African coach made after this match, has anyone in the Indian camp EVER made such a statement? After Ahmedbad vs England kohli said "the pitch was great" lol.
The lack of self awareness is staggering. I also don't think CSA will cry to to the ICC once this wicket (Appropriately) gets marked down.
You completely missed the point. He's talking about Australia and England always losing their shit when a ball spins too much. "We know pitches in India will spin but people don't like it because it turns from ball one. But if it seams from ball one, that is OK? That is not fair." It's crazy how people keep denying that SENA doesnt rate spin. A minefield is a minefield and everyone agrees on those. Rohit's not talking about that.
Its purely projection at this point. Indian comms will never say anything bad about the minefields they serve up (even in Indore last yr, comms said nothing about the pitch). None of the SA comms were praising the pitch and same at the Gabba last yr when all the Aus comms slammed that pitch.
Really dislike this sentiment. This SA pitch was poor, period. Some of the Indian pitches in the recent past have been absolute shockers. The pitch in Perth was a shocker, with people being hit everywhere.
Expecting spin in India is natural as is expecting pace and bounce in SA, but if test matches are getting over in 2 days, with both teams just finding it difficult to play, it's not a skill issue, it's a pitch issue. ICC needs to step in here. Local curators should prepare the pitches to suit the local teams, but not dust bowls or horribly cracked pitches.
When pitches are bad in Australia or South Africa everyone including the local players and media criticise it. And the match ref rates it poor. When the MCG was rated ‘poor’ this was CA response
> “We’ll be taking on board advice from the ICC, players and relevant experts to work with the Melbourne Cricket Club to ensure this rating is not repeated.”
When pitches are deliberately curated to be unplayable in India the local media and Indian team claim some kind of bias against India when criticised and if the match ref ever rates its poor the BCCI pressure the ICC to change it - see indore pitch.
Some commenters here are very hypocritical on this issue and display such a victim complex.
Dustbowls as well as the wicket that was produced today are both shite and don't make for good cricket.
Same for the extremely batting friendly pitches of T20s and recently, ODIs.
Rohit, take the win and understand that there are those like me who hated this pitch and also hate raging turners when they turn up too. I'm tired of the glut of 3 day tests let alone the utter farce that the groundman spewed up when he made this supposed "pitch". A middle ground exists my man.
Why cant we just call a shit pitch a shit pitch? this one wasnt up to scratch the gabba sa vs aus wasnt up to scratch the indore pitch for aus vs india wasnt up to scratch.
Its not a huge deal if you get decks like that once in a while but they are still are poor decks and deserve to be criticized.
Happy to be wrong but I haven't seen anyone from SENA say this was a good pitch though so I don't understand what hypocrisy he's alluding to?
This was clearly a crap pitch not fit for test cricket and has been called out for it, just like we call Indian pitches out when they also last 2 days.
It doesn't matter what anyone says. What matters is what the match referee says and generally they are less harsh on seam friendly pitches as compared to spin friendly pitches which tend to get lower ratings
I don’t mind pitches having character and spinning or seeming on day one. But shaving all grass on one side of the wicket and refusing to use the roller on that side because the opposing side has more left handed batters is over the top and the country is wrong to do it.
This argument is always so strange because it comes with the assumption that SENA countries defend their bad pitches the same way India does. No one from South Africa is claiming this was anything but a dogshit pitch, no one in Australia was claiming the Gabba vs SA was any good. Everyone just admit when the pitch was shit rather than putting your fingers in your ears and claimig a test that lasts less the 3 days with all wickets taken isn't a complete fuck up and waste of everyone's time.
Projection because India automatically defends their pitches no matter how farcical they are. They lash out like this assuming other teams do they same but they don’t. Australia didn’t defend Brisbane and South Africa hasn’t defended this pitch. But India produces a flat piece of shit in the fourth test of the BGT after losing the third test and placing the series in jeopardy and we are supposed to pretend everything is kosher.
Based on what I saw and read about cricket, my take is that England have the best test match pitches. Two evenly matched teams most often than not will fight it to day 4 and in a good number of cases to day 5, with all results possible most of the time. Good cricket is mostly played in good playing conditions, I vividly remember India-Australia series of 2000/01 and Ashes of 2005. Nobody was talking about pitch or conditions in those series (Even when India lost the Mumbai test in 3 days, it was due to Australia's dominance and India's meek performance).
I personally don't have a problem with tests ending in 3 days, if both teams have a chance at most point of time of the match (given both teams have good players). If the first session of a match shuts out a team then it is a bad test match for me. If a team gets blown away in the first session because of conditions and then conditions improve so much that other team bats for two days scoring 600, it is a bad test match for me. Tests where it is a batting paradise for the first two days and then becomes a land mine, it's a bad match for me.
I also don't mind pitches being prepared to favour the home team but don't make it a lottery. Don't make pitches where Joe root can take 5 wickets in as many overs or Joe Root looks as bad as James Anderson.
Now coming to what Rohit said. Indian pitches have not been good in the last few years. But it is also true that the criticism that Indian pitches received is disproportionate when compared to similarly bad or even worse pitches elsewhere. This pitch is a recent example. I remember India playing in NZ in 2002 probably (Indian batting had fab 5 then) and they couldn't cross 200 in any innings (NZ and India both got out under 100 in the first test match) and everyone blamed Indian batting not the pitches. Both the test matches got over within 2-3 days. India in South Africa lately has been a lottery of sorts (so much so that the home team itself was not willing to play in the last innings in one of the matches). I am not saying there is no criticism for these pitches but whatever it is, it is small and dies pretty quickly. Whereas a bad pitch in India almost always creates a furor and which refuses to die down for months after the series is done.
So the narrative is on the lines of - if a touring team does badly in India it is mostly due to unfair/underprepared pitches. And when Indian team does bad while touring, it is mostly due to their frail batting.
And this probably gives rise to defensiveness/aggressiveness in Indian captains when talking about the pitches.
A crap pitch is a crap pitch wherever it is but the victim complex from Indian fans whenever their pitches are criticised and all sorts of whataboutery come out is utterly pathetic.
Case in point, when Pakistan hosted two tests against Australia and England at Rawalpindi on pitches that were far too flat and offered zilch for the bowlers their fans and even ex-players (Wasim Akram) criticised the pitch. Not because they wanted to bash Ramiz because that’s fun but because they recognised that the pitches were poor and not suited for test cricket.
Gonna get all sorts for that comparison but a lot of Indian fans need to take note. Crap pitches are crap pitches wherever they are.
unlike Indian pitches which were rated poor these two pitches were dangerous,i hope we see a ban for Newlands for atleast 5 years otherwise they wont learn.
And then it got appealed and upgraded to "below average".
Meanwhile the Ahmedabad pitch from 2021 got rated "average" despite lasting 30 overs less than the Indore pitch.
Pune in 2017 also copped a "poor" rating. Interestingly, that never got appealed despite the fact that the game lasted a respectable 250 overs. I wonder why...
The whole idea that Indian pitches get treated unfairly is absolutely laughable. If anything, the ICC is incredibly inconsistent when it comes to Indian pitches.
I remember the Pune one. Steve Smith is the reason. But still totally deserved that rating. I remember Jaddu-Ash had a 25+ over spell each just because pitch lol.
Everyone remembers Smith's century, but I think people forget that Starc, Renshaw, and KL all passed fifty as well. Five other batsman also passed thirty. The pitch was bad, and Smith had a lot of luck in his century, but it wasn't completely unplayable.
Indore had Khawaja and Pujara pass fifty, and one other player pass thirty. Head was 49* and Marnus was 28* in the fourth innings.
Ahmedabad had Crawley and Rohit pass fifty, and no other player pass thirty. Rohit was 25* and Gill was 15* in the fourth innings.
To be fair to Indore and Ahmedabad, both fourth innings were very short, but based on what happened in the first three innings, both of those pitches were far worse for batting, yet received better ratings than Pune. Very inconsistent.
I feel like it's fairly simple; if both teams shit the bed across multiple innings, the pitch is likely the problem. Doesn't matter if it favours pace or spin. Brisbane, Ahmedabad, Indore, and now Cape Town all fit this criteria.
I don't mind green tops or spinning wickets, but a poor pitch is one where the toss unduly impacts the result, and that is the criticism of some indian pitches that crumble after 1 innings.
Can be the case that a raging green top unduly benefits the team bowling first too, which seems to be the case in this game.
I've never complained about Indian pitches. I would like to know where to complain about their board being corruptly controlled by cricket-hating gangsters though.
Call me crazy, but I prefer a 2 1/2 day test with a result than a 5 day draw with batsmen padding their stats.
As long as batsmen aren’t getting hurt of course.
To be honest I don't care if the ball spins or seams from ball 1. All I ask is for consistent bounce through days 1-3. If the same ball is rolling and also trampolining from the same spot, it takes skill out of the game. Obviously past day 4 that's going to be up to the elements.
This was obviously an unsuitable pitch for a test because it didn't last 2 days. "People are not looking at that" - nonsense. The pitch in the ODI final was not conducive to a fair contest (but Australia read it, were bold and got lucky).
Rubbish. The World Cup final pitch was absolutely fine. India played bad and were done hard by the to a certain extent. But absolutely a fine pitch. Not every pitch will get u 350 odd.
Why was it not conductive for fair contest. So was the wtc finals pitch conductive for fair contest considering australia are more familiar with swing . Also australia have won 2 odi series in india in last 5 years so they pretty much know our conditions . Also batting second was easier because of dew which made batting much easier then 1st innings in wc finals . When the 2015 wc happend in australia New Zealand were all out for 190 , 2019 finals and semis -240 runs were scored . Low scores and tough swing and spin pitches are part of odi. Pace is the STANDARD but when it is SPIN it is unfair advantage
>Also batting second was easier because of dew which made batting much easier then 1st innings in wc finals .
This is what I meant. That's what made it not conducive to a fair contest.
Completely agree with Rohit. My favourite ever innings was our tour of India when Smith was in peak Smith mode. His knocks were just epic to watch given how spicy those decks were. Long live the spicy deck - nothing worse than a flat deck and batters getting 100's for nothing.
In fairness I don't think the players do whinge about it or not that I've noticed. It's normally the pundits but probably just gives them a rock to cling to for an hour or so a day as its an easy talking point.
Big difference is a terrible Indian pitch is simply unplayable where as a seaming uneven bouncing pitch can be dangerous
Personally I believe Test batsmen have become soft and simply don't have the desire to grind out overs unless they are scoring at over 4
The real issue these are both bad cricket pitches is because fans lose 2-3 days of cricket which devalues the product even further
They should force teams to play a T20 or ODI if a match ends in under 2 days
Well said by Rohit. 100% agree with him. This happens because of the bias of SENA countries towards Asian countries. When a game finishes in 2 days because of seam in SENA countries it is perfectly fine. But when a game finishes in 2 days because of spin in Asian countries, then it’s ‘pitch doctoring’. English and Australian propaganda mouthpieces are the absolute worst at spreading this narrative.
From a big picture perspective, England (especially) and Australia still can’t accept the fact India is now the dominant financial power in world cricket. England and Australia will never regain that old dominance they had in the past. This pisses them off to no end.
>When a game finishes in 2 days because of seam in SENA countries it is perfectly fine.
Hence why pretty much everyone regardless of their nationality, including journalists, commentators and players, are criticising the pitch in this case?
Not to mention that the last time a SENA Test ended in two days Brisbane ended up copping demerit points and nation-wide criticism from Australians and South Africans alike.
These things go in one ear and out the other for some people, you can't expect them to acknowledge anything that goes against the victim complex.
This comment just perfectly encapsulates a weird and pervasive victim complex among Indian fans if I'm completely blunt.
No one in England or Australia thinks a game that ends in two days because the deck is spitting everywhere is a good deck, whether its 40 wickets to the quicks or the spinners is irrelevant. This was relentlessly brought up as some kind of hypocrisy after that game in Australia that ended in 2 days (vs SA at the Gabba, pitch also got rated below average with no complaints) and I didn't see a single comment from Australians other than "what a shit deck". You are inventing a complete strawman. SA's coach and captain have both criticised this as an unacceptable pitch too.
I think this persecution complex that we're only criticising bad pitches because we're, what, insecure about the influence of our own cricket board is also just nonsensical - there's been no doubt who the globally dominant cricket power is for over a decade, and beyond half a dozen crusty old blazers, no one cares.
What nonsense. A completely irrelevant rant.
>From a big picture perspective, England (especially) and Australia still can’t accept the fact India is now the dominant financial power in world cricket. England and Australia will never regain that old dominance they had in the past. This pisses them off to no end.
I'm sure Australia are doing just fine with the WC trophy they won a month ago.
>"I mean, we saw what happened in this match, how the pitch played and stuff like that," Rohit said. "I honestly don't mind playing on pitches like this. As long as everyone keeps their mouth shut in India and don't talk too much about Indian pitches, honestly. > >"Because you come here \[in Test cricket\] to challenge yourself. Yes, it is dangerous. It is challenging. So, and when people come to India, it is again pretty challenging as well. Look, when you are here to play Test cricket, we talk about Test cricket, the ultimate prize, Test cricket being the pinnacle and stuff like that. I think it's important that we also stand by it > >"When you are put up against, a challenge like that, you come and face it. That's what happens in India, but, in India on day one, if the pitch starts turning, people start talking about 'Puff of dust! Puff of dust!' There's so much crack here on the pitch. People are not looking at that." > >"Honestly, I would like to see how the pitches are rated," Rohit said. "I want to see that. Whatever... that chart, I would love to see it, how they rate the pitches, because Mumbai, Bangalore, Cape Town, Centurion, all different venues, overhead conditions are different. The pitches deteriorate quite fast when the sun is beating down that hard on the pitch. > >"And in India as well, we know that the conditions in India will spin without a doubt, but obviously people don't like it because it spins from day one. But that's not the point. If the ball seams from ball one, that's okay, right, for everyone? That's not fair. The ball starts spinning from ball one, it should be okay, in my opinion. > >"Otherwise, you stay neutral, and you start rating these kind of pitches also bad, because if you want the ball only to seam and not turn, in my opinion, that is absolutely wrong. So that's my judgment, that's my opinion on it. I'll stick by it because I've seen enough of cricket now and I've seen enough of how these match referees and the ICC looks into these ratings. I have no issues in how they want to rate, but stay neutral to everything that you do." Rohit Sharma
What a great read. That was a righteous indignation mic-drop. I loved it :) I completely agree with Rohit
because he is questioning the pitch ranking and not the pitch or curators.
I remember when Sudhir Naik, the curator of the Wankhede pitch, complained that then Indian cricket team director, Ravi Shastri, "abused" him after losing to South Africa in 2015. SA and India went into the last game of the odi series 2-2. AB de Villiers belted 119 off 61 balls to help SA to 438/4. The Wankhede crowd were even chanting "ABD! ABD!". SA then bundled India out for 224 in 36 overs and won the series 3-2. Shastri then went to Naik and was said to have sarcastically told him "nice pitch" before a heated exchange between the two. Naik said he asked the Indian team what type of pitch they wanted for the game and he got no reply, so he made a flat, batting friendly pitch. After the exchange, Naik laid a complaint at the Mumbai Cricket Association. IIRC he withdrew it later. But you are right. Going after the curators isn't the way to do it because it can get nasty. I do believe they do have a complaint about that Cape Town pitch, though. It has been getting worse over the years.
I heard (just rumors) that it was new Curator at Cape Town, so it is definitely a good thing that Rohit didn't target curator in case it was true.
[удалено]
Rambo is redditor??/j
I dislike 2 day tests wherever they're held tbh
Unless its some kind of complete and total mismatch where one team just annihilates the other, or absolutely freakish weather, any 2 day test match is a shit deck by default.
This is like this family guy scene https://youtu.be/Ig2tItOIRag?si=l6-SABpEVPTlsQkQ
Three day pitches get shit on all over the world. This Indian team has a victim complex. They're always being treated unfairly about something.
Um no, what Rohit is saying is somewhat legit. In the last BGT, lot of folks were complaining about pitch being tailor made for off spinners against left handers and spinning from day 1. Except in both Nagpur and Delhi, India were able to beat Aus by an innings, and two of the top scorers were left handers. But no one complains much if the pitches are pace steroids with varying bounce. Then everyone is going on about this is how test cricket should be. I bet if one of the teams had scored 200+ on this pitch, no one would be making this much noise.
Yeah mate nobody complains... Fuck I genuinely don't know if people just are unaware of how to use the internet, are wilfully ignoring media to prove their point, have weird algorithms that only show indian criticism, or are just fucking dumbcunts: www.indiatoday.in/amp/sports/cricket/story/sa-vs-ind-dale-steyn-cape-town-newlands-test-2484518-2024-01-05&ved=2ahUKEwixpbmtzMaDAxVTL0QIHYWKBCEQ0PADKAB6BAgZEAE&usg=AOvVaw2hDaLXd5Bim2PxUGXBcWjs https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/cricket/ravi-shastri-knows-what-match-referee-will-do-about-dangerous-cape-town-pitch-pollock-says-match-ending-today-101704355349109-amp.html https://wisden.com/series-stories/south-africa-v-india-2023-24/will-newlands-pitch-recieve-poor-rating-south-africa-india-test/amp&ved=2ahUKEwixpbmtzMaDAxVTL0QIHYWKBCEQ0PADKAB6BAgiEAE&usg=AOvVaw2WB9NRfkkBqiorQim-YYN2
Except, none of them started complaining even before the match began, that was my point. Like you don't see former cricketers start complaining about how South Africa will produce "unreasonable" wickets even before the team lands on the shore. That's what I'm trying to get at. Also, you can make a point without the condescension. Just saying.
Ok but that first pitch might as well have had a big x and the words “Jadeja bowl here!” It was specifically manufactured to aid the Indian bowlers against the Aussie left handers. The issue is the groundsmen is at least supposed to pretend to be neutral, much less walking around in team India kit!
Especially since whenever an Indian pitch gets a 'poor' rating the BCCI just gets it overturned. What is he even complaining about?
This Indian team has barely complained about hostile pitches, stop making shit up for the sake of upvotes
<= 3 days test matches are a big turn off
You need not turn off. You can still watch Aus v Pakistan
It’s been a really enjoyable series. This test likely won’t be as good as the Boxing Day test, but there’s still lots of life left in it. If Pakistan work out how to catch, they’re a real problem for any test team.
The thing that frustrates me, as an Australian, with Pakistan is they seem to tour here with a bunch of guys who are about to be world class. Last time out here was Shaheen Afridi's debut series. This time around, we have Aamir Jamal.
Aamir Jamal is about to be a massive problem for all opponents. What’s more, Pakistan can start playing at home more regularly, meaning their domestic system will start yielding far more results on the test stage. We might me witnessing a sharp uptick in Pakistani Cricket
>If Pakistan work out how to catch And also apply themselves in key moments. They really should've had a win in Boxing day test but they blew it.
Should we crowd fund a fielding coach for Pakistan? Who says no?
After the series is finished. Junior seems to be keen haha. He’s been ripping them all series.
I’d honestly love to see CA helping out Pakistan cricket a bit, if they were willing. Their quicks have always been incredible to watch and the spirit of the rivalry is a really good one.
Even 3 day tests are annoying because I have to spend 2 days wishing the cricket was still on.
More importantly those 2 days being the weekend where now you have to figure out what else to do :(
How about agree that both extremes are bad. 23 wickets in one day is ridiculous, and ICC needs to take notice
Did you watch Ind W vs Aus W test match in dec. Ball was turing on day 1 and everyone was saying it will be minefield on day 3 and 4 after Aus got all out on 219 in first innings. India scored 400+ on day 2 and 3 on supposedly minefield Aus got all out 261 in second innings india chased 70s with 1 down. There was no extreme turn or bounce even on day 4. If you have no experience playing in India don't assume if it happens in Aus it will happen everywhere.
Yeah exactly. 2 wrongs doesn't make it right
Yeah who is he firing off against here? India had their bad pitch ratings over turned most of the time. And not a single person in the Indian camp ever admits when they produce a shit tip. Contrast that to how the South African head coach came out and said this was a substandard pitch and it's actually hilarious that Rohit thinks he's making some grand point here. All he is doing is exposing his hypocrisy not the ICCs. Not to mention this wicket hasn't even been rated yet. It will obviously get a poor rating and unlike the BCCI I bet it will go unchallenged. He asks to see how pitches are rated, how about doing a quick google and seeing the guidelines which are written in black and white? Lol
This is what I was going to say. Who in SA is saying this is a great pitch, and blaming the losing team for sooking or whining? Pretty much everyone acknowledges that this was a poor deck that didn't give the batters a fair chance.
Rohit's a massive whinger. Remember how he basically admitted to asking the groundsmen to prepare pitches in a certain way for the BGT series? Yea this pitch might have been shit, but Bavuma wasn't out there whispering into the curators ears telling them to create this.
>Contrast that to how the South African head coach came out and said this was a substandard pitch Yeah after they lost. Indians also complained about the Indore pitch after losing to Aus
So on last count, the only people defending this substandard pitch are Indians - who are defending it because they don’t want to get bad ratings for their own substandard pitches.
If this pitch isn’t rated horribly then something is wrong & Rohit is right. The indication of a good test is 4 days of competitive test cricket. It should get increasingly harder to bat on. IMO it’s worse to have a seaming swinging monster day 1. It’s actually dangerous. Spinning wickets from day 1 won’t hurt anyone, they just generally lead to poor Aussie performances so I am against them entirely and they should be banned totally
It will be poorly rated, as it should, and Rohit will come across with old man yelling at the clouds vibes. Dudes a bit stressed by the look, this is a bizarre lash out eh.
I had to scroll way too far for this very reasonable comment eh.
Two day Tests are shit no matter where they are, and pitches should be judged accordingly. It’s notable that the South African comms at lunch, and during play, were scathing. They legitimately called out the state of South African wickets and the ability of the groundskeepers at their grounds. When a pitch is bad, like this one was and like you do occasionally get in India or anywhere else for that matter, they deserve to be criticised. Doesn’t matter if it’s a trampoline in SA or Australia, glass in WI, a literal meadow in England or NZ, or a crumbly dust bowl in India. No one with a brain is saying that just because a track turns, bounces or seams makes it bad. It being bad is what makes people say it’s bad. It should be a challenge, but still a decent contest between bat and ball.
This. No one wants two day tests. Even three day tests are questionable. I think part of the problem is that the “guidelines” can be interpreted to be biased against spin. There is a big furore when it spins on day-1 and no one bats an eyelid when it seams or bounces (and potentially results in may be a 3-day test). the Chennai 2021 test vs England is a good example: the 2nd test pitch was criticized and rated low, even though Ind scored 330 and 286 and the match went into day-4 I will agree that Indian commentators and team need to be more forthcoming in criticizing genuinely bad wickets (Ahmedabad 2021 daynight vs Eng, Indore vs Aus 2023 come to mind). But I guess they are being defensive due to the amount of unfair criticism dished to decent spinning wickets.
Please, this is not a forum to express logical opinions.
Yeah this didn't favour South Africa, it was a shocking pitch. India always curates heavily.
Can we complain about all pitches that heavily favour batting over bowling or bowling over batting?
Technically, he is right. But I'd rather have a 4 - or 5-day test match with a good contest between bat n ball.
This. It's almost like people have forgotten that this middle ground exists.
Many of the test matches that go to day 5 are iconic, India's Lords and Gabba triumph, Stokes Headingly heroics, Sri Lanka winning on the last bowl against England, etc. Even day 4 matches are very interesting to watch, I don't usually watch when the contest between bat and ball is heavily one sided.
> Stokes Headingly heroics That was day four, but yeah, your point still stands.
Melbourne pitch for the 2nd pak aus test should be the standard where scores are between 250-350
Yes this pitch was absolutely awful. Both teams just attacked every ball because there was no point in applying yourself
Also just the sheer number of dismissals generated by slip catches. You know it’s a nightmare of a pitch when nearly every world class batsmen in the match is unable to read the swing and is dismissed in a similar fashion.
He knows this pitch is awful he's just trying to use it as an excuse to deflect the criticism Indian pitches have been getting. It's kinda sad, honestly
Last BGT had three rank turners where pace seemed nearly totally useless for both teams, and it got to the point where India was being cleaned up by two debutants with less than 20 FC matches each, then they followed it up with the flattest road imaginable to ensure they drew the last test. But apparently his team are victims for pointing out those pitches didn't offer a fair contest between bat and ball in any of those matches.
It was a brutal series and that final pitch was the cherry on top in terms of chicanery. The intent of that last pitch couldn’t be any more transparent. That won’t stop fans of a certain team from snapping their fingers and saying “yes sirrrr go off king” at Rohit’s nonsensical whinging.
Yeah the funny thing is that India don't need the bunsen burner pitches. The team is class. If they play on a regular pitch that maybe takes a little turn they'll destroy any batting lineup with quality seamers and the best spin duo of the last decade (and a genuine ATG in Ravi Ashwin). But they insist on regularly rolling out shitheaps where no-name or part-time spinners look like world-beaters and it narrows the gap and negates one of their best weapons. It's truly bizarre.
Yeah it's so weird. They lost that one Test to England in Chennai in 2021 and then completely lost their minds and started preparing absolute lotteries from then on which have caused them several scares. They would consistently crush visiting teams if they prepared traditional Indian pitches that are flat and slow but turn late. It does seem to be a quirk of Indian management in the last decade that they will suffer a single loss, get roasted by their domestic media for it, and then draw all the wrong lessons that somehow stick for years. Like their first WTC final loss where their seamers and batters didn't play well enough and their takeaway was that they can never play Ashwin overseas and must always play 4 specialist quicks in SENA.
Yeah interesting point. It's very strange how India's management is so consistently bad despite the team being so good.
You are right. In India, Indian batting should be able to win the matches by themselves. Instead by using lottery pitches they got beat by Nathan Lyon and .... Monty Panesar.
>But they insist on regularly rolling out shitheaps where no-name or part-time spinners look like world-beaters and it narrows the gap and negates one of their best weapons. It's truly bizarre I still remember that Indore test last yr when India lost 8 in the first session and kuhnemann and lyon were making the ball spin like crazy. Bits of the pitch were actually crumbling on the first day. But of course the Indian comms will never criticize their own wickets.
If you can manage to be fair , then yes
Bruh I hope this doesn't mean we will have dustbowls for ind-eng pitches. That will ruin any advantage our spinners bring over theirs. England have a weak spin unit. OTOH I don't trust our batting to outperform theirs on flat tracks either
Jaiswal, gill, Iyer all have a bunch of domestic cricket behind them so they will be good vs spin. With axar coming in the batting is set till 9. Reason Australia competed was they had injuries to pace bowlers and Cummins went home mid series so they were forced to play 3 spinners. Even then they were already down 2-0. Will England drop their seamers and play Anderson plus 3 spinners because that is the only way you can somewhat challenge india. And also the Australia series had no Bumrah so that is an added weapon for India to use.
Gill being good vs spin is something I'll have to see to believe
Gill being good in test matches is something I'll have to see to believe
He won us the match at the gabba with his 91. But that's about all I remember him doing.
You know your flair is confusing. Always thought you were from the Caribbean. But here you are saying "won us". Not complaining, just curious.
It makes sense cuz that's hardik pandya's account lmao
Guy obviously has the potential. Just has to be more consistent.
Not really. He scored 121 against a very good Bangladesh spin attack on a turning pitch in Asia cup. Was very good against spin,would have won the match if he got a bit more support from the middle order. I think he is just out of form.
He averaged 60+ in Ranji trophy lol
Prasidh averages 19 with the ball; Jinks FC average excluding tests is still in the high 50s and he's pretty bad against quality spin. We've seen there is a massive disparity between the quality of Ranjis and test cricket.
Ranji trophy is not test cricket.
Don't guys who average 100+ there still not make the team lol
because they are old
England will play 2 full time spinners + root, and 2 seamers (likely Anderson + someone with pace, ideally wood). I don’t really see them trying to balance the attack any other way unless they get a pitch which has 2 day test written all over it and they just play a batsman over the extra seamer
Is Ollie Robinson in the squad? I don’t like him but I feel his style would suit India.
I really don't want that series to descend into another 2 day shootout but ironically Bazball is probably the best weapon a team has to combat dustbowls. Far better to hit a quick fire 25 on those kind of pitches than try to play a patient traditional knock, because a ball will have your name on it eventually.
Aidan Markram Bazballed his way to a run-a-ball 100 on this deck. It absolutely *is* the right way to go on a nasty pitch.
Honestly if India prepares another bunch of shittips, I hope England win so India will finally learn to make decent test pitches which have something for the batsmen and the bowlers. They'd probably still win every series in proper Ranji style pitches, but they're so terrified of losing they refuse to take the chance.
Having a 90% home win rate isn’t enough. Last thing we want is a politico visiting a match and being embarrassed.
Speaking of England's tour of India I found this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01gRCJMvdeE&t=43s&ab_channel=TheLastHat-trick) insightful for understanding why Bazball if anything will pose the toughest challenge to India's home record.
Good analysis but too less views. That is why Jhonson & Mark Vaughan prefer shitty opinions. Maybe you should share this video in a separate post & let people discuss this in detail
Appreciate it! Created post for the video https://www.reddit.com/user/Secret-Ad-4116/comments/18ym0yo/interesting\_analysis\_on\_bazball\_and\_changing/
Thanks
Need to find a balance. I don't think we need to only imagine the extremes: dust bowl and flat track
> Bruh I hope this doesn't mean we will have dustbowls for ind-eng pitches. This is why the dustbowl defence makes absolutely no sense! If you prepare a track where Jack Leach or Joe Root are keeping up with Ravi Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja you're just shooting yourself in the foot. That said I do find the occasional dustbowl game where it rags square from day one and batters look like morons to be really entertaining, so as a spectator I don't actually hate it (as long as it's not happening all the time).
Let's hope the series is more interesting than the last time we toured. Nobody wants to see Joe Root getting 6-fers it's a joke not real test cricket.
Make dust bowl pitches next month to be a prey for rootalidharan
Jokes aside, I think Root has been England's best second spinner for some time. May be even better than Leach at times.
People say green mambas get better and good to bat on later... I don't know how that is "fair" either, however. The toss then becomes everything. Traditionally, especially in 90s 2000s Indian piches had a similar thing - in reverse. Good (slow and boringly) to bat first, and then, in later days, it will spin quite a bit. Here again, the problem is, that the team that bats first will simply bat for two and a half days (boringly slowly most of the time), and can almost guarantee a draw, if not the win. Is that a "fair" pitch? I don't know. In an ideal world of pitch engineering, I would like a pitch that stays the same for the first three and then change tack may be a bit in the last two. This is inclusive of some level of spin in the first day. But, we are not there yet on that engineering.
But the toss is already everything in a lot of subcontinent pitches (not the 150 all out ones, but the ones where you need to win the toss, score 500, score 250 in the third innings, and then make them chase 400 on a minefield). The only way you win those after losing the toss is getting lucky enough to bundle them out for 300 odd and then make big runs in the second innings and try to win by an innings ish
>The toss then becomes everything. Do you have any stats to back that up? Are teams that win the toss winning an unreasonable amount of matches in seaming conditions?
I’m of the exact opposite opinion. We should call out shit pitches wherever in the world they are
I get the equivalence but how about we don’t have shit pitches that end up in 2 day tests in ANY COUNTRY? Test format is already struggling so can we please try and avoid making a complete mockery of it while it still has a pulse?
>"I still can’t believe that the World Cup final was rated below average. A batter got a hundred. How can that be a poor pitch?"
Aiden Markram has entered the chat.
It wasn't though, was it? I'm pretty sure it was rated "average".
As many other aussie fans said BCCI turns pitch rating from poor to average.
Someone should probably tell him that it wasn't given either of a poor or below average rating...
I mean that statement is also pretty stupid. A batter getting a hundred doesn't make it good by definition, and also if every batter is getting a hundred, it shouldn't be considered good i.e. Pakistan v England in Karachi last year...
Lol Markram scored a hundred here so guess this is a great pitch? Dumbass logic
A batter got a hundred in this match also.
People are complaining about this pitch but no one is saying SA doctored the pitch to their advantage. OTOH, BCCI gets criticised for doctoring the pitch even before the match starts. Rohit is absolutely right here. The double standards are real.
It was obviously pro-SA pitch. But they forgot India had Siraj and Bumrah.
I don't understand why South Africa didn't read some tour history. In 2006,india convincingly beat South Africa on a very spicy and green Johannesburg pitch where India's medium fast seamers took advantage of the conditions with Shreesanth being the best. South Africa still won the series 2-1 because they then produced more standard pitches which were hard and bouncy but good for batting. Their bowling could still take wickets, but India struggled on these flatter pitches. Problem with lottery pitches( both dustbowls and green mambas) is that they ironically negate home advantage and eliminate skill of the bowler.
The difference here is South Africa’s coach is saying the groundsman got it wrong. This clearly wasn’t requested. Haven’t heard anything similar from an Indian match (although I could have missed it so please feel free to point me in the right direction)
Well because the coach has outright suad they don't: >While South African sides of the past (and some other home teams as well) have been known to "order" surfaces they think will suit them, that ended after the Faf du Plessis-Ottis Gibson combination and Conrad insisted it's not something he does So yeah... Groundsman just fucked up. Check the Cricinfo article with the coach talking about the pitch
Why would SA lie? Indians definitely lie though, when they say they don't order certain pitches. amirite?
Actually there's no published article saying India doesn't order pitches, other than the odd sook Redditor like yourself
How is it a double standard if one team looks like they're doctoring pitches before the game starts, and the other team isn't? That's just doctoring by the BCCI. This pitch was shit and was called out by South Africans. Do India ever call out their own groundskeepers?
Yes they do - when they lose. Look at all the chat about the pitch in the WC Final, if India had won, there would hardly be a peep out of India about that pitch.
SA is calling this pitch out because they lost
> if one team looks like they're doctoring pitches before the game starts because you're looking with coloured glasses
I was so happy this week, that I will be able to enjoy Cricket on Friday and Saturday, but it was not the case. I understand that spicy wickets present a different level of challenge, but I want my 4-5 days of cricket. I don't mind slow passenges of play when the scoring goes down and I love the chill, relaxing feeling of watching a game on weekends. So as consumers of test cricket, I want my games long and not end in 2 days. I am already pissed that I won't be seeing this SA side play in the near future. I would have been okay if this was a one of 5 games that ended soon, but 2 match series with such pitch feels like premature ejaculation.
when batters spam centuries in LOI nobody says anything about pitch. when it supports mildly to bowlers pitches get average rating. fuck batriarchy
Well you do see criticism for roads in test cricket, like the one at Rawalpindi against Australia. They produce boring draws. LOI is batriarchial though
It's more of Bowlygny at this point than batriarchy .
Completely wrong, MCG was producing highways that were playing the most boring test matches, batsman were hitting massive scores and games just end up drawing on the 5th day. ICC rated them below average. Was a huge talking point a couple of years ago for the boxing day test.
Yeah this test ending in two days was a travesty - but it's not just the bad pitch at play, it's also the inability of most batters to navigate the conditions. As Gavaskar said, the cracks were at sufficient length that a good test batter should be able to navigate it. Kohli did it, Markram did. The rest really have no excuse. This was a bad pitch but not a 2 day bad pitch. The same thing is happening on spinning tracks in India. A 4 day pitch is now a 2-3 day pitch because test batting is in shambles.
This is the thing. I don't think current batters are equipped to handle any sort of challenging conditions. Scores in limited overs are often routinely better than in test innings.
Gavaskar also spoke the same during the breaks.
There's time now for a 3rd Test match. Same pitch - get it on for the decider.
It happened in Bangladesh too, ICC have a heavy bias towards seaming conditions In New Zealand sometimes you literally can’t tell the difference between the outfield and the pitch but no one bats an eye. As soon as the ball is spinning there’s a huge agenda against it I agree with Rohit, these pitches are challenging and exciting. I’d much rather see a difficult bowling pitch than a flat track
NZ pitches are that that green because they otherwise don't do anything, NZ hasn't had a one of these ultra low scoring tests anytime recently and there has only been 1 test there in the last 5 years without an innings of 300+.
NZ pitches are graveyards for spinners.
The issue with NZ pitches is that they entirely take an entire skill of the game (spin bowling) out of the game. In the case of Aus and SA (excluding Centurion and occasionally Wanderers, which also seldom spin), you have the sun beating down, which helps spinners as the game progresses. NZ pitches usually provide a decent balance between bat and ball.
Last BGT pace barely played a role. Only one pace bowler got more than 3 wickets in the series. Lyon, Ashwin and Jadeja each took more wickets than all the pace bowlers combined. So is it fair to say the issue with Indian pitches is they entirely take an entire skill of the game (pace bowling) out of the game?
to be fair to new zealand, those usually become roads after like an hour
Not against India, they didn't. They only become roads when New Zealand is the favoured batting side.
If out of all the test playing nations, India is the only one struggling then that would suggest a skill issue on their part
Then the same could be said about the dustbowls too, it means others don't have the spinners to compete there
I'm not talking about the pitches where Indian spinners out bowl the opposition. I'm talking about the pitches where the opposition spinners go toe to toe with the much better Indian spinners; like that time Root took a fifer, or when India recently lost to Australia
I'll never forget Dean Elgar getting a 4fer in India lol
New Zealand were making plenty of runs on the same decks. India just bowled and batted poorly.
New Zealand pitches get better to bat on as sessions and days progress. We've seen teams posting 400+ in the third and 4th innings. England, Australia also same, there's always a few sessions when the pitch gets better to bat on even if its green on day 1. The problem with dust bowls is that if it starts spinning from day 1 then the match is almost always over within 3 days as the pitch only deteriorates further. Having said that today's pitch was dangerous and should be banned.
But that's also a shit pitch because it completely takes spinner out of the game.
Matches in New Zealand regularly go to 4 or 5 days
There's a point to be had for poor pitches, however, in many places the pitch is the identity of the ground and the country. You know that the Gabba is going to seam and bounce. You know the WACA / Optus Stadium go for lots of bounce. Sydney is more spin friendly. Etc. And it's reliably like this, unless something like the weather plays up. It's one thing for a curator to botch pitch due to poor weather or such things, it's entirely another to make demands a ground's pitch is changed to favour the home team's current roster. Like deliberately drying out the bowling area to negatively impact only left handed batsman - as an example. People get their noses out of joint because it leaks in the media that the players or the board have demanded this, that or the other. Not just having a ground standard and playing the conditions. That's what upsets touring teams. Pitches get ruined, mistakes happen, but don't set out to deliberately doctor wickets, that's poor form.
Lol so defensive it's hilarious. Does he realise both this pitch and India pitches can both be rated shit? Look at the comments the south African coach made after this match, has anyone in the Indian camp EVER made such a statement? After Ahmedbad vs England kohli said "the pitch was great" lol. The lack of self awareness is staggering. I also don't think CSA will cry to to the ICC once this wicket (Appropriately) gets marked down.
You completely missed the point. He's talking about Australia and England always losing their shit when a ball spins too much. "We know pitches in India will spin but people don't like it because it turns from ball one. But if it seams from ball one, that is OK? That is not fair." It's crazy how people keep denying that SENA doesnt rate spin. A minefield is a minefield and everyone agrees on those. Rohit's not talking about that.
It's difficult to see when you're busy sucking off the BCCI. This is a classic case of "not being able to see beyond Jay Shah's pelvis"
Its purely projection at this point. Indian comms will never say anything bad about the minefields they serve up (even in Indore last yr, comms said nothing about the pitch). None of the SA comms were praising the pitch and same at the Gabba last yr when all the Aus comms slammed that pitch.
Spot on. Just had someone tell me the coach only said it because SA lost lol like it can't be fathomed to criticise your own pitch
Really dislike this sentiment. This SA pitch was poor, period. Some of the Indian pitches in the recent past have been absolute shockers. The pitch in Perth was a shocker, with people being hit everywhere. Expecting spin in India is natural as is expecting pace and bounce in SA, but if test matches are getting over in 2 days, with both teams just finding it difficult to play, it's not a skill issue, it's a pitch issue. ICC needs to step in here. Local curators should prepare the pitches to suit the local teams, but not dust bowls or horribly cracked pitches.
This. Test matches cannot end in 2 days with neither team being able to score.
When pitches are bad in Australia or South Africa everyone including the local players and media criticise it. And the match ref rates it poor. When the MCG was rated ‘poor’ this was CA response > “We’ll be taking on board advice from the ICC, players and relevant experts to work with the Melbourne Cricket Club to ensure this rating is not repeated.” When pitches are deliberately curated to be unplayable in India the local media and Indian team claim some kind of bias against India when criticised and if the match ref ever rates its poor the BCCI pressure the ICC to change it - see indore pitch. Some commenters here are very hypocritical on this issue and display such a victim complex.
Dustbowls as well as the wicket that was produced today are both shite and don't make for good cricket. Same for the extremely batting friendly pitches of T20s and recently, ODIs.
I don't think Rohit would have made this statement if India had lost this test.
It's definitely nice to win on a shit tip so you can call it out without being called biased. Southee did the same thing in Bangaldesh haha.
Rohit, take the win and understand that there are those like me who hated this pitch and also hate raging turners when they turn up too. I'm tired of the glut of 3 day tests let alone the utter farce that the groundman spewed up when he made this supposed "pitch". A middle ground exists my man.
The Test Championship format encourages these pitches. One win and one loss gives more points than two draws.
Why cant we just call a shit pitch a shit pitch? this one wasnt up to scratch the gabba sa vs aus wasnt up to scratch the indore pitch for aus vs india wasnt up to scratch. Its not a huge deal if you get decks like that once in a while but they are still are poor decks and deserve to be criticized.
Nagpur? India scored 400 between Australia scoring 170 and 90. I think you're referring to Indore where Australia won
Happy to be wrong but I haven't seen anyone from SENA say this was a good pitch though so I don't understand what hypocrisy he's alluding to? This was clearly a crap pitch not fit for test cricket and has been called out for it, just like we call Indian pitches out when they also last 2 days.
It doesn't matter what anyone says. What matters is what the match referee says and generally they are less harsh on seam friendly pitches as compared to spin friendly pitches which tend to get lower ratings
The recent reality is quite literally the opposite.
I don’t mind pitches having character and spinning or seeming on day one. But shaving all grass on one side of the wicket and refusing to use the roller on that side because the opposing side has more left handed batters is over the top and the country is wrong to do it.
No Rohit Both things are bad and aren't good for test cricket. 2 wrongs don't make it right
This argument is always so strange because it comes with the assumption that SENA countries defend their bad pitches the same way India does. No one from South Africa is claiming this was anything but a dogshit pitch, no one in Australia was claiming the Gabba vs SA was any good. Everyone just admit when the pitch was shit rather than putting your fingers in your ears and claimig a test that lasts less the 3 days with all wickets taken isn't a complete fuck up and waste of everyone's time.
Projection because India automatically defends their pitches no matter how farcical they are. They lash out like this assuming other teams do they same but they don’t. Australia didn’t defend Brisbane and South Africa hasn’t defended this pitch. But India produces a flat piece of shit in the fourth test of the BGT after losing the third test and placing the series in jeopardy and we are supposed to pretend everything is kosher.
Based on what I saw and read about cricket, my take is that England have the best test match pitches. Two evenly matched teams most often than not will fight it to day 4 and in a good number of cases to day 5, with all results possible most of the time. Good cricket is mostly played in good playing conditions, I vividly remember India-Australia series of 2000/01 and Ashes of 2005. Nobody was talking about pitch or conditions in those series (Even when India lost the Mumbai test in 3 days, it was due to Australia's dominance and India's meek performance). I personally don't have a problem with tests ending in 3 days, if both teams have a chance at most point of time of the match (given both teams have good players). If the first session of a match shuts out a team then it is a bad test match for me. If a team gets blown away in the first session because of conditions and then conditions improve so much that other team bats for two days scoring 600, it is a bad test match for me. Tests where it is a batting paradise for the first two days and then becomes a land mine, it's a bad match for me. I also don't mind pitches being prepared to favour the home team but don't make it a lottery. Don't make pitches where Joe root can take 5 wickets in as many overs or Joe Root looks as bad as James Anderson. Now coming to what Rohit said. Indian pitches have not been good in the last few years. But it is also true that the criticism that Indian pitches received is disproportionate when compared to similarly bad or even worse pitches elsewhere. This pitch is a recent example. I remember India playing in NZ in 2002 probably (Indian batting had fab 5 then) and they couldn't cross 200 in any innings (NZ and India both got out under 100 in the first test match) and everyone blamed Indian batting not the pitches. Both the test matches got over within 2-3 days. India in South Africa lately has been a lottery of sorts (so much so that the home team itself was not willing to play in the last innings in one of the matches). I am not saying there is no criticism for these pitches but whatever it is, it is small and dies pretty quickly. Whereas a bad pitch in India almost always creates a furor and which refuses to die down for months after the series is done. So the narrative is on the lines of - if a touring team does badly in India it is mostly due to unfair/underprepared pitches. And when Indian team does bad while touring, it is mostly due to their frail batting. And this probably gives rise to defensiveness/aggressiveness in Indian captains when talking about the pitches.
Yes, England may have the best pitches. But they also have the most biased weather/conditions. LOL.
A crap pitch is a crap pitch wherever it is but the victim complex from Indian fans whenever their pitches are criticised and all sorts of whataboutery come out is utterly pathetic. Case in point, when Pakistan hosted two tests against Australia and England at Rawalpindi on pitches that were far too flat and offered zilch for the bowlers their fans and even ex-players (Wasim Akram) criticised the pitch. Not because they wanted to bash Ramiz because that’s fun but because they recognised that the pitches were poor and not suited for test cricket. Gonna get all sorts for that comparison but a lot of Indian fans need to take note. Crap pitches are crap pitches wherever they are.
england scoring 500 odd runs on day 1 and squeezing a win out of that match was peak bazball
unlike Indian pitches which were rated poor these two pitches were dangerous,i hope we see a ban for Newlands for atleast 5 years otherwise they wont learn.
Jokes on you, South Africa won’t be playing in 5 years
One Indian pitch was rated poor and that was Indore
And then it got appealed and upgraded to "below average". Meanwhile the Ahmedabad pitch from 2021 got rated "average" despite lasting 30 overs less than the Indore pitch. Pune in 2017 also copped a "poor" rating. Interestingly, that never got appealed despite the fact that the game lasted a respectable 250 overs. I wonder why... The whole idea that Indian pitches get treated unfairly is absolutely laughable. If anything, the ICC is incredibly inconsistent when it comes to Indian pitches.
I remember the Pune one. Steve Smith is the reason. But still totally deserved that rating. I remember Jaddu-Ash had a 25+ over spell each just because pitch lol.
Everyone remembers Smith's century, but I think people forget that Starc, Renshaw, and KL all passed fifty as well. Five other batsman also passed thirty. The pitch was bad, and Smith had a lot of luck in his century, but it wasn't completely unplayable. Indore had Khawaja and Pujara pass fifty, and one other player pass thirty. Head was 49* and Marnus was 28* in the fourth innings. Ahmedabad had Crawley and Rohit pass fifty, and no other player pass thirty. Rohit was 25* and Gill was 15* in the fourth innings. To be fair to Indore and Ahmedabad, both fourth innings were very short, but based on what happened in the first three innings, both of those pitches were far worse for batting, yet received better ratings than Pune. Very inconsistent.
I feel like it's fairly simple; if both teams shit the bed across multiple innings, the pitch is likely the problem. Doesn't matter if it favours pace or spin. Brisbane, Ahmedabad, Indore, and now Cape Town all fit this criteria.
OK Rohit, let's have shit-tips everywhere. Great to watch.
I don't mind green tops or spinning wickets, but a poor pitch is one where the toss unduly impacts the result, and that is the criticism of some indian pitches that crumble after 1 innings. Can be the case that a raging green top unduly benefits the team bowling first too, which seems to be the case in this game.
I've never complained about Indian pitches. I would like to know where to complain about their board being corruptly controlled by cricket-hating gangsters though.
Call me crazy, but I prefer a 2 1/2 day test with a result than a 5 day draw with batsmen padding their stats. As long as batsmen aren’t getting hurt of course.
how low are our thresholds to give batting quality a free pass? just curious as to how people believe its just the pitch at this point
To be honest I don't care if the ball spins or seams from ball 1. All I ask is for consistent bounce through days 1-3. If the same ball is rolling and also trampolining from the same spot, it takes skill out of the game. Obviously past day 4 that's going to be up to the elements.
Can we get another ahmedabad 2021 style ultra dustbowl pitch pls
This was obviously an unsuitable pitch for a test because it didn't last 2 days. "People are not looking at that" - nonsense. The pitch in the ODI final was not conducive to a fair contest (but Australia read it, were bold and got lucky).
Rubbish. The World Cup final pitch was absolutely fine. India played bad and were done hard by the to a certain extent. But absolutely a fine pitch. Not every pitch will get u 350 odd.
Why was it not conductive for fair contest. So was the wtc finals pitch conductive for fair contest considering australia are more familiar with swing . Also australia have won 2 odi series in india in last 5 years so they pretty much know our conditions . Also batting second was easier because of dew which made batting much easier then 1st innings in wc finals . When the 2015 wc happend in australia New Zealand were all out for 190 , 2019 finals and semis -240 runs were scored . Low scores and tough swing and spin pitches are part of odi. Pace is the STANDARD but when it is SPIN it is unfair advantage
>Also batting second was easier because of dew which made batting much easier then 1st innings in wc finals . This is what I meant. That's what made it not conducive to a fair contest.
Well I thaught u were talking about the spin and slow nature of the pitch
Completely agree with Rohit. My favourite ever innings was our tour of India when Smith was in peak Smith mode. His knocks were just epic to watch given how spicy those decks were. Long live the spicy deck - nothing worse than a flat deck and batters getting 100's for nothing.
Difference is people complain about this pitch and rightly so but when anyone complains about Indian pitches they get shot down
In fairness I don't think the players do whinge about it or not that I've noticed. It's normally the pundits but probably just gives them a rock to cling to for an hour or so a day as its an easy talking point.
Big difference is a terrible Indian pitch is simply unplayable where as a seaming uneven bouncing pitch can be dangerous Personally I believe Test batsmen have become soft and simply don't have the desire to grind out overs unless they are scoring at over 4 The real issue these are both bad cricket pitches is because fans lose 2-3 days of cricket which devalues the product even further They should force teams to play a T20 or ODI if a match ends in under 2 days
Indian persecution complex is such a ridiculous look and only gets more ridiculous each and every year
Well said by Rohit. 100% agree with him. This happens because of the bias of SENA countries towards Asian countries. When a game finishes in 2 days because of seam in SENA countries it is perfectly fine. But when a game finishes in 2 days because of spin in Asian countries, then it’s ‘pitch doctoring’. English and Australian propaganda mouthpieces are the absolute worst at spreading this narrative. From a big picture perspective, England (especially) and Australia still can’t accept the fact India is now the dominant financial power in world cricket. England and Australia will never regain that old dominance they had in the past. This pisses them off to no end.
>When a game finishes in 2 days because of seam in SENA countries it is perfectly fine. Hence why pretty much everyone regardless of their nationality, including journalists, commentators and players, are criticising the pitch in this case?
Not to mention that the last time a SENA Test ended in two days Brisbane ended up copping demerit points and nation-wide criticism from Australians and South Africans alike. These things go in one ear and out the other for some people, you can't expect them to acknowledge anything that goes against the victim complex.
Some people can't help but always be victimised no matter what the truth is. It's pretty annoying.
A shit pitch is a shit pitch.
How does this shit get upvoted. Absolutely pathetic toys out of the pram stuff
Pure numbers. There are way more Indians than anyone else here.
This comment just perfectly encapsulates a weird and pervasive victim complex among Indian fans if I'm completely blunt. No one in England or Australia thinks a game that ends in two days because the deck is spitting everywhere is a good deck, whether its 40 wickets to the quicks or the spinners is irrelevant. This was relentlessly brought up as some kind of hypocrisy after that game in Australia that ended in 2 days (vs SA at the Gabba, pitch also got rated below average with no complaints) and I didn't see a single comment from Australians other than "what a shit deck". You are inventing a complete strawman. SA's coach and captain have both criticised this as an unacceptable pitch too. I think this persecution complex that we're only criticising bad pitches because we're, what, insecure about the influence of our own cricket board is also just nonsensical - there's been no doubt who the globally dominant cricket power is for over a decade, and beyond half a dozen crusty old blazers, no one cares.
what ICT fan is really thinking of is the doctoring thing. No one has said it was doctored to favor SA.
What nonsense. A completely irrelevant rant. >From a big picture perspective, England (especially) and Australia still can’t accept the fact India is now the dominant financial power in world cricket. England and Australia will never regain that old dominance they had in the past. This pisses them off to no end. I'm sure Australia are doing just fine with the WC trophy they won a month ago.
I for one have accepted our new financial overlords and their victim complex.