At around 4.30pm on February 25, the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium stood bare. The stands were empty, the dressing rooms were vacant. Cameramen and technicians were busy de-rigging the wires circling the ground. The electronic display boards for advertisements were being dismantled. Curator Pandurang Salgaonkar and three groundsmen stood in the middle of the ground. It was a forlorn picture.
It was the third day of the first Test held in the stadium; a debut India would want to wish away. The hosts were undone by a surface that made life perilous when they batted and negotiable when the Aussies did. India lost by 333 runs and had its worst seven-wicket batting collapse in Tests. The current set of players had their first reality check. India had lost after 19 wins on the trot.
Said Indian captain Virat Kohli: “I would say we needed something like this to get a reality check and understand the things we need to work on. [We should] not take anything for granted at any stage, specially at the Test level.”
Rebounding from a such a thrashing would be the first priority for Kohli and head coach Anil Kumble. After the match, the Indian team took a trip to the Western Ghats to clear the cobwebs.
“In India, they will always come back strongly, unlike when they are abroad, where the challenges are different,” former India pacer Javagal Srinath told THE WEEK. “This is [their] home turf, they are aware of the conditions and know what’s happening. Even in the Pune Test, if the wicket had slightly less turn, it would have been a different game.”
Though the Indian team management insisted that they had not spoken to anyone in the Board of Control for Cricket in India regarding the type of pitches the home team wanted, the 22-yard strip has been pushed back into focus. “I think it was certainly a wicket that would more likely suit the Indian players,” said Australian captain Steven Smith. “I think it evened up the contest a lot more. We saw the way our spinners bowled; they were able to generate some good spin and good natural variation. It was up to them [India] to prepare a wicket, and they prepared one that actually played into our hands. It would be interesting to see what they come up with in Bengaluru.”
Pune has been special for Smith. He recently replaced Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain of the Rising Pune Supergiant in the Indian Premier League. Before the Pune Test, he had led Australia in nine consecutive losses. This was Australia’s first Test victory in India since 2004.
The wicket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, however, is unlikely to be a rank turner. The dry Pune pitch was an aberration and, Bengaluru onwards, it would most likely be slow turners, where batsmen eye big totals.
“Conceding a 160-run lead [155-run lead] on that kind of wicket is criminal, actually,” said Kohli, putting the blame on the batsmen. “If we were close enough to their first innings total, the bowlers’ mindset would have been different in the second innings.” The Indian batsmen were guilty of errors in judgment—they were playing for the turn and fell to left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe’s straighter deliveries.
Before the series began, Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh had made a fortuitous prophecy. “Where the wickets are spin-friendly, Aussie spinners can take wickets,” he told THE WEEK. “But on slow turners, it is about the right trajectory and the right pace.” This was what happened in Pune. The underrated O’Keefe became the unlikely hero, taking 12 wickets for 70 runs, while the Indian spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja reaped fewer benefits. Sridharan Sriram, former Indian left-arm spinner and Australia’s spin consultant on the tour, spoke about the adjustments O’Keefe made. On day two, during India’s first innings, O’Keefe did not look like a serious threat. At lunch, while his teammates went to the dressing room, O’Keefe stayed on the field with Sriram. “I asked him, ‘What do you think you need on this wicket?’,” said Sriram. “He said he needed to go a little bit rounder and quicker. And, I just asked him to go for it. I think he adapted beautifully.”
Kohli, however, did not give O’Keefe any extra credit. “I think our spinners bowled really well,” he said. “If you don’t apply yourself, any bowling attack can look dangerous.”
Jadeja was unlucky as his deliveries narrowly missed the bat’s edges several times. Ashwin’s efforts were undone by poor close-in catching. “Jadeja didn’t get wickets, which was hard luck,” said former Indian spinner Maninder Singh. “Ashwin didn’t bowl that well. The Aussies counterattacked him and he couldn’t adjust accordingly. One could see Ashwin completing his run-up quickly, not giving himself enough time to think. On rank turners, you have to keep bowling the right line and length, the pitch will do the rest.”
Maninder Singh, too, rued the Indian batsmen’s failure to adapt to the wicket. “No one tried to attack, they were so defensive,” he said. “There was possibly some complacency from the team [India] as they had met with little resistance in earlier series. Our players are good players of spin on good wickets.”
However, he was confident about India coming back strongly. “I can bet you O’Keefe will himself be surprised with this performance. Anil Kumble is a fighter, so is Kohli,” he said.
