JOIN USOld formula brings home gold
It’s only apt that South Africa’s nine-year unbeaten run on the road was ended by India whose own undefeated record at home since 1993 had been terminated by the Proteas in 2000, when Hansie Cronje’s men coasted to a 2-0 win over the Sachin Tendulkar-led side.
The 1993 has been taken as the benchmark because it was in this year when India, under Mohammad Azharuddin, adopted a strategy against visiting teams that ensured them unprecedented success. While the manager-captain combine of Ajit Wadekar and Azharuddin decided to roll out turners to test the visiting batsmen’s skills, the duo found bowlers like Anil Kumble and company to exploit the favourable conditions to the hilt.
The experiment began with the series against England who crashed to a 0-3 whitewash with the Indian spinners claiming 46 wickets. While Kumble led the pack with 21 scalps, Venkatapathy Raju (16) and Rajesh Chauhan (9) lent more than able support as the trio left the Englishmen befuddled. The template remained the same for several years to come as India went unbeaten in 11 home series between 1993 and 1999, winning nine of them.
Kumble, the constant during this period, claimed a staggering 162 wickets while the rest – Raju, Chauhan, Narendra Hirwani, Maninder Singh, Sunil Joshi and Ashish Kapoor – accounted for 146 scalps as India developed an aura of invincibility around them at home. As the numbers testify, the performance of the spinners was immense.
The current team -- under Team Director Ravi Shastri and captain Virat Kohli – has sort of revived that policy as is evident in the ongoing series, which they have won already, against South Africa. While the pitches have been to India’s liking, R Ashwin and company have managed to make the most of these conditions. Ashwin already has 24 wickets from five innings while left-arm spinners Ravindra Jadeja and leggie Amit Mishra (in four innings) have chipped in with 16 and seven wickets.
“Well it’s a big plus,” Kohli said talking about his spin trio. “Two out of the three guys are very consistent and Amit Mishra for a leg-spinner is very economical which is not a regular sight. It’s a delight to have all three in the squad. All three bowling well in Indian conditions is obviously an advantage (for India) and a threat for the opposition. So I am really happy all three are in rhythm and I am really happy for Jadeja because he is making a comeback and the way he has bowled, the way he has looked, confident with the bat as well, it shows that if you go back to first-class cricket and you work hard to come up the right way again, things do fall in place,” he remarked.
The spin troika has brought the mighty South Africa to their knees in a matter of seven days of Test cricket and that obviously has raised questions over the quality of pitches thrown up for the series, both at home and abroad. While home advantage is a debatable topic, the charm of Test cricket is in the different challenges it poses the players in different conditions -- the swing and the seam in England and New Zealand, the pace and the bounce in South Africa and Australia and the spin and turn in the sub-continent.
The relentless focus on the nature of the pitches, however, has actually taken some of the sheen away from India’s major success in recent times. If Kohli was upset over the series win being hijacked by talks around the surface, he did a great job of masking it.
“It doesn’t really matter,” said Kohli who has spent more time at press-dos defending the pitches than at the crease scoring runs. “People can talk about it, people can choose not to talk about it. Fact is that we have won the series and we have won two Test matches. That is not going to change however many articles are written about the pitch, however many articles are written about our batting or undue advantage for our spinners. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, results matter and that’s why we play this game — to win games,” he offered.
India may have gone for turning tracks, but it’s a move fraught with considerable risk. That neither side has managed to post a total of 250 in the series so far proves that if only the Proteas’ batsmen, who are superior to their Indian counterparts at least on paper, had shown more purpose in their approach and stomach for fight things could have been different. To reduce the victory by a young team to a factor called pitches is to belittle the achievement.