Enough with the double standards

Meanwhile, Down Under and 10 days before the end of this infamous Test, the second Test match between Australia and New Zealand ended in a mind-numbing draw in Perth.

A track as flat as the pitch of a rapper, saw just 2272 runs in 5 days. There were just 4 centuries and 2 double centuries, both higher than the highest team score in Nagpur. While the retirement of Mitchell Johnson took some of the attention away from the ridiculous statistics, I am sure that this pitch wouldn’t have grabbed as much attention as Nagpur anyway.

A common sight throughout the India-South Africa series

That the pitch was unplayable for bowlers, was never given much of a thought. Just a sympathetic sigh, nothing more.

When the lead character of a film gets beaten up by a group of huge men, it is usually seen as sad and pathetic. But when the comedian of a film gets beaten up exactly the same way, most of us are entertained.

Spinners holding the collar of batsmen and dragging them around all day long is pathetic but those big heavy bats coming down on bowlers and crushing them like ants stuck under your feet, is not that bad.

I am in no way justifying the former. Both the situations are equally bad but the comparative treatments are completely unacceptable. The Perth wicket was as flat as the road in any race course and the Nagpur wicket, as dusty as the road across my street.

Finding the balance

The wicket in Delhi can be considered decent with conditions helping. It had something for everyone. Rahane scored twin centuries, Abbott scalped 5 wickets in the first innings, Morkel and Yadav took 3 in the second, Piedt took 4 and Jadeja and Ashwin dismissed 7 batsmen each in the match. And not to forget, South Africa crawled through 143 overs in the last innings, which is a phenomenal effort.

The pair tore the Australian bowling apart

A good wicket is one that has something for everyone. A team has players apart from the spinners and the top order. Tracks like the one in Delhi and the one in Adelaide had something for everyone.

The ICC really needs to crack down on the double standards against bowlers (especially spinners) in the game. It needs to be made clear that a flat belter is as poor as a damp/dusty square turner.

Also, if having a quick, bouncy wicket against a sub-continental team in Australia is not questioned, then India has all the right to use their home advantage to the fullest and provide slower tracks.

But this hampers competition as visitors are more often left waiting to be mauled by the home team. Therefore, it is best that the ICC intervene and prevent the home teams from dictating the type of pitch to be prepared. It is definitely a lesser burden to the boards and the curators if the latter are given more liberty to prepare a pitch of their choice, keeping in mind the quality standards to be maintained.