Turning pitches

MS Dhoni expressed a desire the other day for Indian pitches to turn from the first day. It’s easy to be cynical about it, (‘It’s only because he hasn’t got any seamers’ e.g.) but I quite agree. If there is nothing in the pitch for the bowlers at all we get lifeless, boring tracks. These can turn into exciting matches as we saw at Mumbai, but only very seldom and only when the bowlers find some help late in the match. The vast majority of cases turn into stupefyingly boring draws, which are bad for everyone in the long term. It’s bad for the bowlers for obvious reasons and it’s bad for the administrators who face a declining interest. It’s also problematic for batsmen; for one thing it cheapens batting records, but also because they then do not know how to play when the ball is doing a bit.

We are seeing more and more instances of batsmen falling cheaply when they play on a good track. The most spectacular was Australia’s 47 all out at Cape Town, but I think the more damming example was in England last year. Rahul Dravid was the only one to succeed and he is one of the only batmen in the Indian order who plays with a good technique. On the other side of the coin was Virender Sehwag. On the subcontinent, where there is no venom in the new ball, Sehwag can attack with impunity and take the match away from the opposition. (As we saw in Chennai in 2008.) When he tried to do the same in England, however, he picked up a king pair. Sehwag is the best example, but few of the Indian batsman displayed the ability to play the moving ball. To an extent it isn’t their fault; many of them had never had an opportunity to play on a seaming pitch before.

Of course, India’s travails in England were against the swinging/seaming ball. Dhoni would like to see the ball spin, but I think it’s still fair. It’s very hard to get the ball to seam or swing in India, the conditions simply aren’t suited for it, so having the ball turn from the start is the next best thing. However it is achieved, it is very important for the bowlers to have some help throughout the match and I quite agree with Dhoni’s suggestion.

575-9

With all the fuss about the Morgan Report I had forgot a bit about India going for a whitewash against the Windies. It doesn’t look like they will. At stumps on the second day the West Indies are 575-9. Since the war, no side has lost after scoring more 575 or more in the first innings of a Test match. In fact, on only two occasions has a team has lost after scoring 550 or more in the first innings of a Test match. Both were at Adelaide and both were in this century. Australia lost to India in 2003 and I see no need, even after winning by an innings at Adelaide last year, to mention the other one. The second tied Test in Madras in 1986 also featured Australia scoring 574-4 declared in their first innings. Pakistan also once lost a match against Australia after scoring 574-8 declared in the second innings of the match. Since the war almost exactly half of matches in which the side batting first have gone past 549 have been drawn, 61 out of 123.

It’s only the second time the West Indies have gone past 550 since declaring on 749-9 against England in February of 2009 and the first time in over a year. (Compare this to England who since the same match in Bridgetown have gone past 550 seven times and four times in the past year.) It’s not wholly surprising; it looks a flat deck and we’ve seen that India’s bowling can be suspect when there’s not a lot of help from the pitch. Still, it’s very good for the West Indies that they managed to build on their second innings fight from the last Test and have put themselves in a position where they should certainly draw the Test match. (Though I don’t see them winning it.)

Whilst it is only the second time that the Windies batsman have passed 550 in almost three years, it is the eighth time that Indian bowlers have conceded that many in that time span. That is far and away the most of any team in that time span; the next most is Sri Lanka with five. The fact that India were the number one team in the world for much of that time highlights the absence of a clearly dominant side. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing.)

The wait for the 52nd hundred

There’s been a bit more talk recently about the possibility of Tendulkar reaching his 52nd Test hundred. The current India v West Indies Test is in Mumbai, and if he could get the the magic five two in his home city it would be extra special. What is so special about fifty-two you ask? Well it is the first even number after fifty for one thing. That’s pretty special. Of course the real reason why there is such a fuss about it is that if he goes to 52 Test hundreds his 48 ODI hundreds would make his total number of international hundreds is a nice round number, and people like nice round numbers. I am actually rather dreading the moment when he gets to it. Not because I have anything against Tendulkar, I should point out, but the fuss surrounding it is rather tiresome.

For one thing, it’s not a proper milestone. His fiftieth Test hundred was an amazing accomplishment, but Test and ODI hundreds are different beasts. An ODI hundred does not require the same endurance as a Test hundred, the bowling cannot tie down a batsman in the same way in ODIs as they can in Tests. Furthermore there are a lot more ODIs played than Tests. (Tendulkar has more than twice the number of ODI caps as he has Test caps.) It doesn’t really mean anything to add them together; one wouldn’t merge Test and ODI batting averages, one wouldn’t merge Test and ODI strike rates why merge number of hundreds? It’s only nice in that it will add up to a hundred international hundreds. It’s still a nice accomplishment but only insofar as the number of Test and ODI tons are individually impressive. It is not like going to a hundred first class hundreds, which involves no addition of separate stats. (Remember that Test matches are a subset of first class matches.) In the end it just isn’t meaningful. Would any rational person claim that Sanath Jayasuriya’s combined 42 international hundreds are more impressive than Wally Hammond’s 22?

And that hints at the main reason why I am dreading Tendulkar’s 52nd Test hundred (or 49th ODI hundred). There are a lot of people (I don’t think a majority, but an annoyingly vocal minority) who already claim that Tendulkar is the greatest batsman of all time and they will all come out of the woodwork again. There may even be serious articles in otherwise reputable news sources about this. It’s ridiculous though. There should not be any discussion about the greatest batsman of all time that does not begin and end with Don Bradman. Everyone knows his average and it is a sight higher than Tendulkar’s 56.08. Furthermore, Bradman played on more treacherous pitches. (I’m not trying to sound like Geoffrey Boycott, but feel free to imagine him saying ‘uncovered pitches’ there.) The Don also has a far higher centuries/matches ratio; he scored 29 hundreds in 52 matches compared to Tendulkar’s 51 in 183. At the rate at which he scored, if Bradman had had the opportunity to play as many Tests as Tendulkar (remember that there were fewer Tests in Bradman’s time and that he lost six years to the war) he would have scored 102 Test hundreds. Bradman blows Tendulkar out of the water in every category that corrects for a different number of Tests played.

To be fair to Tendulkar, playing 183 Tests over the course of 22 years is an incredible feat itself. Bradman, however, did not lack in longevity. He played Test cricket for 20 years and there is no reason why he could not have played close to as many Tests as Tendulkar. Tendulkar’s record is very impressive certainly, but not only is he is a long, long way behind Bradman, he is probably behind Wally Hammond as well. Hammond averaged 58.45 in his 20 year career and like Bradman did so on difficult pitches and had his career interrupted by the war. Tendulkar also has had the advantage of playing Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. (Though at the time New Zealand and India weren’t much better than Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are today.) There is a decent discussion to be had about the exact order of the all time greatest Test batsmen after Bradman (Hammond, Hutton, Hobbs and Grace all have good arguments for the top five and that’s just amongst Englishmen). Tendulkar would certainly be in the top ten, but no rational person could claim him to be better than Bradman.

Perhaps I’m overreacting, but the number of Indian fans who (in some cases literally) treat Tendulkar like he is a god is already a source of irritation. I know that there are lots of rational Indian fans (and lots of irrational English fans, and indeed of all nationalities) but for whatever reason the Indian ones are louder. Perhaps it is because there are more of them as an absolute number (not as a percentage of all Indian fans). The fact that there is even talk about this ‘milestone’ is a bit daft and part of it is due to the deified status of Tendulkar. When he finally does go to three figures it will be enough take precedence over a lot of more important goings on. (I was thrilled that he didn’t do it in England and that India could not hide their humiliating whitewash behind that.) One could say that I like Tendulkar but so not like his fans. In the end I’m left teetering schizophrenically between wanting a good player to do well and dreading the reaction it will provoke.

A deserted Eden

Apparently the crowd for the second Test between India and the West Indies is as sparse as the crowd for the first Test and without the excuse of being in the middle of nowhere. Of course, there are mitigating circumstances. The Indian public have been saturated with cricket this year and may be a bit burnt out. The West Indies are a long way from the force, and thus the draw that they once were, whilst India have not played well this year either. Also, the Test started on a Monday, which is certainly a questionable decision. So there are reasons besides the imminent collapse of Test cricket in India why the turnout might be low.

Still, it’s very troubling. If Indian crowds continue to favour the shorter forms then so will the BCCI and if the BCCI favour the shorter forms then so will the ICC. We’ve already seen that in the postponement of the Test Championship. It may get worse in the future; the Indian team look like they will get worse before they will get better. Without knowing the intricacies of the situation in India I can’t think of a good way to boost interest, but hopefully someone will. India is a big enough market that there must be a fair number of people who still love Test cricket, or would if given the proper opportunity.

India are almost there

The West Indies did not collapse as badly as they might have. They got to 180 and have thus set India 276 to win. It’s a fairly daunting total, but India have gone about it well so far. Sehwag hit his usual run-a-ball fifty before departing to a daft shot and Dravid and Tendulkar are both in the runs. At close they are 152-2 and things look pretty dire for the West Indies.

India need another 124 with eight wickets in hand, but if the Windies can get either Dravid or Tendulkar early on (a big ‘if’ especially for Dravid) they are still in with a shout. The only Indian batsman after Dravid who is in any kind of form is Dhoni, who made a duck in the first innings. It would take an epic collapse by India to lose this test, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Minimum score?

It’s just gone lunchtime in Delhi and the West Indies are struggling with the score on 109-7 in their second innings. It’s a lead of 204, but even that is mostly down to some brilliant counterattacking from Chanderpaul. Still, they need more. At the start of the day I thought they would want about 250 to be favourites. Obviously that is well out of the question now, but they could theoretically defend a lower total than that. The pitch is slow and will take a lot of turn, and the Indian batsmen haven’t posted a good score in a Test match since scoring 364 in the first innings at Cape Town in January. Dravid is in the sort of form that he could almost chase down 200 by himself though. Obviously the Indian batsman play spin well, but they will have to keep their heads; something only Dravid did in the first innings.

All things considered, I can’t see the West Indies defending less than about 250. Certainly anything under 225 is very gettable for India. The West Indies need Chanderpaul to stay in as long as possible. For me, the magic number is 154. Once they get to that, India will have to chase 250 to win and that is never straightforward. On paper they have the batsmen to do it, but those batsmen have misfired all year. The West Indies bowlers have already performed very well to give them a vital first innings lead, but they’ll have to do so again to turn that into a victory.

Game on!

The West Indies managed to scrape past 300 this morning before sensationally bowling out India for just 209. Forget what I said about the Windies needing runs on the board to cope with India’s powerful middle order; the Indians look like they’re still in England! They were fortunate to start well. The openers put on 89, but the opening stand could have been broken long before it was; two edges fell short of the slips, one was dropped and Sehwag was bowled off a no-ball. This was evened out somewhat, as the first wicket was actually a bit unfortunate; Gambhir was run out backing up. After that wicket fell, however, the rest fell in a rush. Only Dravid (of course) resisted with the entire middle and lower order falling away cheaply.

India probably scored about what they deserved to score. Their strokeplay was as bad as it was in England four months ago. Sehwag played with his usual rashness and was fortunate to get to fifty, whilst Tendulkar, Laxman and Yuvraj Singh all flashed at wide deliveries and made just 31 between them. The Windies bowled decently and they maintained an attacking line, but India must now have some serious concerns about their batting. To fail in bowling conditions against the best attack in the world is one thing; to fail on a subcontinent pitch against a second rate attack is quite another.

As mentioned yesterday, India’s bowling looks a bit short as well. Today they opened the bowling with their two spinners! To be fair to Dhoni, it worked as they each picked up an early wicket, but what does it say about (and to) one’s seamers when neither of them can be trusted to open the bowling at a crucial period? India may yet win this match; it is doubtful that they will play so poorly when they come to bat again and they may not have too many to chase. Some in India must hope that they lose though. This is now a side with serious deficiencies and an overhaul looks increasingly needed. Very often the Indian board have used minor results to paper over the cracks in their side. If they lose to the West Indies, however, they may not be able to pretend all is well. A loss may be the best thing for India.

Indians v Windians

The West Indies have made the most of a mostly poor performance on the first day at Delhi, reaching stumps on 256-5. The West Indies won the toss and batted, with India handing caps to a pair of spinners, Pragyan Ojha and Ravichandran Ashwin. The Windies didn’t start well, slipping to 45-2, but a solid 63 from opener Kraigg Brathwaite kept the innings together and an unbeaten 111 from Shivnarine Chanderpaul ensured they weren’t embarrassed.

I say the Windies made the most of a poor performance because only two of their batsmen passed 20 (Carlton Baugh is 19 not out overnight). That said, the Indian bowling attack did not look at it’s best. They only played two seamers, neither of whom looked particularly incisive. All five of the wickets went to the two debutant spinners, which looks more like a result of the West Indian batmen not having experience playing spin on the subcontinent. The fact that Chanderpaul looked untroubled for his century bears this out. He is an excellent player of spin, and unless the Indian bowlers improve he could be in for a very prolific series. He will need support though. He had an incredible series in England in 2007, but the Windies still lost 0-3. It’s not clear from where that support may come however and with the Indian top order back to full strength the West Indies will have to come up with something to stand a chance.