IND vs NZ: In the wake of India’s shocking and unprecedented 0-3 defeat at the hands of an average but spirited New Zealand in the recent three-match Test series, there has been all-round criticism – and justifiably so – of the manner in which Indian batsmen surrendered. They were particularly vulnerable against spin bowling, and this again underlines the myth that Indians are the masters of playing the turning ball.
Emotions aside, credit is due to New Zealand, who were the underdogs at the start of the series, for doing the unthinkable. The Kiwis have never won a three-Test series 3-0 on their home soil. They achieved this stupendous feat in alien conditions – that too without their most experienced batsman, an injured Ken Williamson. Their achievement is even more remarkable considering they come from a country with cold weather, yet their batsmen excelled in the extreme heat and humidity in India, particularly in Mumbai.
In the entire series, India only once crossed the 263-run mark in an innings, when they scored 462 in the second innings of the first match in Bangalore, though the effort failed to prevent New Zealand from registering their first Test win in India in 36 years. That Indian total came after the Kiwi bowlers had inflicted further humiliation by bundling them out for a mere 46 in the first innings – their lowest at home. In the next two Tests, in Pune and Mumbai, India’s top total was 263.
These facts challenge the perception that Indians are the masters of playing spin bowling. This inability to dominate spinners has, in fact, been exposed a few times in the last few years on tailor-made home pitches. When Patel took all 10 at the Wankhede Stadium in 2021, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Shreyas Iyer had failed. Only Mayank Agarwal (150) and Shubman Gill (44) had played him with some authority.
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Test specialists
One of the reasons for India’s defeat was the shot selection. To be precise, most of the batsmen chose to play rash/T20 shots in the five-day format, leading to their downfall. It is a hard reality that since cricketers play so much of the T20 variety, in which they play all types of innovative strokes, that they just couldn’t stop themselves from committing hara-kiri in Test cricket. They have become habitual of playing, for instance, the reverse sweep and the cut that chops the ball onto the stumps.
“You can’t get away by playing T20 shots all the time. You can’t play such shots even in [50-over] One-day Internationals. Players should adapt to different formats. How can Rohit Sharma play that shot?” said former India Test wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani, referring to an indiscreet pull shot that brought his downfall in the second innings of the third Test.
India’s disappointing defeat has triggered murmurs if the team now needs only specialists who play this five-day format. While India have an almost completely different team of T20 specialists, there are certain players like batsman Shubman Gill who plays all three formats, and Yashasvi Jaiswal who plays T20 and Test matches.
All 14 players, barring Sarfaraz Khan, that turned out for India against New Zealand represent different franchises in the Indian Premier League. So, whether they are batsmen or bowlers, it is quite impossible for them to switch their minds overnight after the end of two-month long IPL and adapt themselves to Test cricket instantly. Also, they have to play bilateral T20 series intermittently, so switching on and switching off from different formats is a constant challenge for them.
On the issue of having three separate teams, Kirmani says it is a “million dollar question”. “At any point in time, we have the players who could form three national teams – under-19, India ‘A’, and the senior team. All those youngsters who perform well for the two junior teams progress to the senior team. So, there is no need for separate teams for the three formats,” Kirmani told Patriot from Bangalore.
Former India Test left-arm spinner Maninder Singh says India should instead take certain other measures. “We don’t have 50 or 60 players who can play for India at the same time in three formats. There are certain players who can play all the formats.
And we have [slightly] different teams; the India ‘A’ T20 team has gone to South Africa. It’s a different team, isn’t it? We should not be rigid. We should take this defeat as just a wakeup call; we shouldn’t panic,” Delhi based Maninder told Patriot.
“And you’ve got to realise that these players are playing only international cricket and not domestic tournaments. They are not playing on turning pitches and also not playing a lot of spinners in domestic tournaments that would give them an idea of how to tackle quality spin,” says the 59-year-old former spinner.
Pitch policy
New Zealand spinners captured 37 of the 60 Indian wickets that fell – enough to prove this point. Mumbai-born left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel led the demolition job for the visitors with 15 wickets in three Tests. He bagged 11 in the third Test in Mumbai, where he captured all 10 wickets in India’s first innings in 2021 – only the third instance in Test history.
In all, the spinners accounted for 81 wickets in the series. In 147-year Test history, in a three-match series, spinners have taken more wickets than this only once – 100 – in the Sri Lanka-England series in 2018.
This dominance of spinners highlights the critical role that pitch conditions play in determining match outcomes, especially in spin-friendly environments.
Some experts and commentators have raised the issue of preparing tailor-made pitches for spinners. While the pitches for the New Zealand series were dished out with the aim to help Indian spinners, it was the visiting slow bowlers who turned out to be runaway winners.
“Preparing spin-friendly pitches backfired this time, but it is a good learning for the players, a good lesson. We have a good pace attack and a good team. So, we should play on normal pitches. The BCCI should take care and it should not listen to players [while preparing pitches],” former BCCI chief curator Daljit Singh told Patriot.
Another senior curator who didn’t want to be named revealed that curators are always under constant pressure from the Indian team management and captain to prepare turners. “There’s always pressure on curators. A good curator would buy time by saying ‘let me see’. Local state associations staging matches should back their curators so that good pitches are prepared,” he said.
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Double-Edged sword
Preparing rank turners is a double-edged sword. Often in the last 12 years, visiting teams’ spinners have run through our famed batting line-ups, leaving India red faced. In 2012, the visiting English spinners spelled India’s doom by capturing 39 wickets and ran away with a shocking 2-1 win in the four-Test series. Off-spinner Graeme Swann bagged 20 wickets and left arm spinner Monty Panesar snared 17 to stun MS Dhoni’s team.
Although left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha (20 wickets) and off-spinner R. Ashwin (14) also matched the English spinners individually in the series, Harbhajan Singh (2), Piyush Chawla (4) and Ravindra Jadeja (3) were not as impactful and that’s where India lost the plot.
In 2017, India defeated Australia 2-1 in the four-Test series, but not before the Aussie left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe famously ran through the Indian batting line-up in both innings with a 12-wicket burst in the first Test in Pune for a big win for Steve Smith’s team. O’Keefe and off spinner Nathan Lyon both bagged 19 wickets apiece in the four-Test series, but overall Ravindra Jadeja (25) and Ashwin (21) staged a remarkable recovery after the first Test defeat.
Australia’s premier batsman and part time off-spinner Michael Clarke ripped apart the Indian batting line-up in the fourth and final Test in Mumbai with a six wicket haul, before Harbhajan and Murali Kartik came to the rescue of the home team and won the match. But India, again surprisingly, lost the series 1-2.
Nathan Lyon unleashed another brilliant spell of spin bowling in the 2016-17 series, when he snatched eight wickets in second Test in Bangalore, though India managed to eke out a narrow win.
So, evidently, preparing rank turners is not always beneficial to Indian spinners. “Time has come to leave pitch preparation to curators and players should concentrate on cricket. I have a big issue with rank turners being prepared, because when you yourself can’t play on such pitches why do you need them?” asks Maninder.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi and has covered sports for over three decades
