Indore Test loss: India's batting stocks against turning ball have diminished

“Hoist by their own petard.” A very senior and respected cricket-writer friend with nearly 50 years of experience behind him messaged thus, midway through Australia’s successful chase of 76 on Friday (March 3). He was referring, of course, to the less-than-ideal surface laid out for India’s third Test at the Holkar Stadium in Indore, which the Aussies won inside seven sessions by nine wickets to trim the visitors’ lead in the four-Test series of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to 2-1.

Slow turners have been the norm in India for a long time now, because after all, spin has been India’s traditional strength. Not only did India boast some of the greatest spinners to have graced the game, it also could fall back on true maestros when it came to playing the turning ball. The list of batsmen who dominated and destroyed spin of the highest quality is as long as it is illustrious; using the late 60s as the starting point, it includes such luminaries as Gundappa Vishwanath, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir…

Also read: India vs Australia Test series schedule, squads, live TV, streaming, past results and more

Indian batters against spin

To continue to insist that spin is still India’s greater strength, especially at home, must be viewed from an overall holistic perspective. While India has two of the great modern-day spinners in R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, few can deny that their own batting stocks against the turning ball have diminished vastly for various reasons discussed elsewhere in this platform. Bowling spin is still an Indian speciality, but batting against it is not. That’s the reality, and even if the Indian think-tank might differ publicly, it’s hard to imagine them not seeing the writing on the wall.

Rohit Sharma was in an unusually semi-belligerent mood at the conclusion of the Indore Test, saying he’d rather answer questions related to excellent performances than to a pitch of dubious character where batting was more of a lottery than an examination of skill. “I don’t know why, when it comes to India, people focus so much on the pitch,” he said, somewhat testily. “Matches get over in three days in other parts of the world also. We believe this is our strength and we are brave enough to play to our strength. Sometimes it might come back to haunt us, but I am okay with it.”

Podcast: Review of Day 2 of India vs Australia 3rd Test in Indore

But then again, that’s the point, isn’t it? Most of India’s victories until the end of 2019 came on proper cricketing tracks – not flat shirtfronts that facilitated batathons – that had good bounce, an ally for pacers and spinners alike. They encouraged positive stroke-making and rewarded batsmen who applied themselves as well as bowlers who were skilled and creative. Indeed, when Alastair Cook’s England came calling towards the end of 2016, they posted upwards of 400 in the first innings of each of the last two Tests in Mumbai and Chennai, and yet ended up losing both by an innings.

‘Lapses in concentration’

In the last year and a bit, however, there has been a marked concentration on serving out ‘designer’ tracks. Dravid has spent more time inspecting pitches in his 14 and a half months in charge as head coach than during his 15 and a half years as an international cricketer, his involvement on pitch preparation bordering on the obsessive. Perhaps, given his wisdom and intelligence, he sees more in his batting group than most others do, because to the rest of the world, the travails of India’s top order seem more pronounced at home than when they visit Australia or even England and New Zealand.

Rohit pointed to ‘lapses in concentration’ for India’s meltdowns of 109 on the first day and 163 on the second, and he obviously knows what he is talking about. But beyond these lapses, there were also distinct signs that not all of the top six trusted its defence, was sure of skipping down the track or of using means to unsettle the rhythm of the bowlers. This isn’t a new development in Indian cricket; worryingly, for the last half-dozen years or so, India has bestowed gifts on even journeymen visiting spinners, their reputation as wizards against the turning ball having taken a massive beating.

Bad pitch

Back to Indore then. As bad as the pitch was, India’s 109 on the first day was exceptionally poor, infinitely worse than Australia’s 177 and 263 respectively in the first innings of the two previous Tests. The conditions and the lack of fight owing to technical issues threw Australia, seemingly out for the count after the first two Tests, a grand opportunity to wend its way back into contention. Australia clearly isn’t as bad as its performances in the first two Tests might indicate; it’s not by accident that it is the No. 1 Test side in the world and, offered an unexpected lifeline, it gratefully grabbed it with both hands.

To have the luxury of Steve Smith back at the helm, if only in a stand-in capacity, was a huge bonus. By his own admission, Smith enjoys captaining in India more than anywhere else in the world – ‘Every ball is an event,’ he smiled on Friday – and he was always ahead of the game, placing funky fields, getting into the minds of the batsmen, quick to rotate his bowlers even when they were on song, and generally not allowing the game to drift. His proactiveness was complemented by the discipline of his bowlers under the peerless Nathan Lyon and the indecisiveness of his batting counterparts in the Indian set-up. It can be said with complete conviction that Australia both out-batted and out-bowled India in Indore, a stunning turnaround after third-day finishes in the first two Tests which pointed to a 4-0 whitewash.

Ahmedabad in less than a week’s time is where the last act of this series will play out. By virtue of this win, Australia is now through to the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) even if it can’t win this series, while India must wait a little longer, though it is still a hot favourite to get there ahead of Sri Lanka. India has seldom been in a position where it has been challenged mid-series by a touring side. It will be interesting to see how, and with how much potency, it reacts.