India v England, 2nd Test, Mumbai, 23-27 November, 2012

But you've dropped Bell, Bresnan AND Broad! The three the others were suggesting.

That Bell has gone home has been public knowledge for some time now.
Both Bresnan and Broad bowl rubbish on Indian wickets as was obvious in Ahmedabad. I'm sure India would be delighted if you guys persevered with them. Maybe Broad, but Bresnan is worse than a trundler in India. Why would you play Bresnan when you've got Onions?

Interesting read this

Won't agree with him on all counts but he does make valid points about shite pitches when it suits us.

tricycle wrote:Interesting read this

Won't agree with him on all counts but he does make valid points about shite pitches when it suits us.

Good article.

tricycle wrote:Interesting read this

Won't agree with him on all counts but he does make valid points about shite pitches when it suits us.

Don't quite agree about the shite pitches. Just about every country doctors pitches to suit their strengths with maybe the exception of Australia; the pitches at Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane have maintained their signature (more or less) throughout these years. It always makes me laugh how people point fingers at spinning wickets, yet keep that very same finger firmly in their fist when it comes to fast seaming wickets curated with their own teams in mind. Quite obvious when the expressway suddenly morphs into turner or a cow pasture turns into sloth a few weeks later.

What Dhoni wants though reflects his own childish insecurity. He doesn't want spin friendly tracks. Not even doctoring is enough for him. What he wants is surgery.

Ahmedabad wasn't a bad pitch. It was plain to see that good batsmen could score runs. Equally though, it wasn't the usual Ahmedabad pitch, which is flat crap after some early swing weather permitting. Kanpur 2008, then the first two tests in the New Zealand series.

Brisbane, if it continues producing 1/500 and 4/500 wickets, will have to be considered a poor pitch too. Lords through the noughites struggled to get a result that was flat as.

That said, I haven't seen greentops since Pakistan were in England, and even they were more the overhead conditions than the pitches.

mirchy wrote:
Don't quite agree about the shite pitches. Just about every country doctors pitches to suit their strengths with maybe the exception of Australia; the pitches at Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane have maintained their signature (more or less) throughout these years. It always makes me laugh how people point fingers at spinning wickets, yet keep that very same finger firmly in their fist when it comes to fast seaming wickets curated with their own teams in mind. Quite obvious when the expressway suddenly morphs into turner or a cow pasture turns into sloth a few weeks later.

What Dhoni wants though reflects his own childish insecurity. He doesn't want spin friendly tracks. Not even doctoring is enough for him. What he wants is surgery.

I don't agree with that. All Dhoni is actually saying is he wants pitches with a proper amount of zip in them. Monga made the point that if a better team than England played on that Ahmedabad pitch, it would've been a turgid draw. He's got a point.

mirchy wrote:

tricycle wrote:Interesting read this

Won't agree with him on all counts but he does make valid points about shite pitches when it suits us.

Don't quite agree about the shite pitches. Just about every country doctors pitches to suit their strengths with maybe the exception of Australia; the pitches at Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane have maintained their signature (more or less) throughout these years. It always makes me laugh how people point fingers at spinning wickets, yet keep that very same finger firmly in their fist when it comes to fast seaming wickets curated with their own teams in mind. Quite obvious when the expressway suddenly morphs into turner or a cow pasture turns into sloth a few weeks later.

What Dhoni wants though reflects his own childish insecurity. He doesn't want spin friendly tracks. Not even doctoring is enough for him. What he wants is surgery.

Absolute crap. SA doesn't do anything to their wickets.

taipan wrote:

Absolute crap. SA doesn't do anything to their wickets.

No moral victory for you

However, in his pursuit of a surface that will do all it can to help the South African cause, he will not be hampered as much as he might otherwise have been. There have been siren calls from the national coach, Mickey Arthur.

"I have had a little word," Arthur is reported to have said. "We are looking for a result wicket. If we don't get the rub, then so be it."

Aditya wrote:

taipan wrote:

Absolute crap. SA doesn't do anything to their wickets.

No moral victory for you

However, in his pursuit of a surface that will do all it can to help the South African cause, he will not be hampered as much as he might otherwise have been. There have been siren calls from the national coach, Mickey Arthur.

"I have had a little word," Arthur is reported to have said. "We are looking for a result wicket. If we don't get the rub, then so be it."

You don't really understand cricket do you?

taipan wrote:
You don't really understand cricket do you?

I don't understand things. I relish them.

There are other news snippets on the web in the build up to wanderers 2010 where a desperate Graeme Smith has been quoted as demanding the greenest surface possible against England. What are we to make of that?

Aditya wrote:

taipan wrote:
You don't really understand cricket do you?

I don't understand things. I relish them.

There are other news snippets on the web in the build up to wanderers 2010 where a desperate Graeme Smith has been quoted as demanding the greenest surface possible against England. What are we to make of that?

And it was basically the same wicket was it not? The point is that the pitches in SA all have differing surfaces but in nature stay the same year after year. Yeh, you can spice up Wanderers for the first session but overall it will remain the same. cape Town will always take some spin but you cannot alter its nature so that it will turn square by lunch on day one.

taipan wrote:

And it was basically the same wicket was it not? The point is that the pitches in SA all have differing surfaces but in nature stay the same year after year. Yeh, you can spice up Wanderers for the first session but overall it will remain the same. cape Town will always take some spin but you cannot alter its nature so that it will turn square by lunch on day one.

The point is not how much the character of a pitch can be changed. The point is the willingness of the South Africans to offer themselves every conceivable advantage against England. That includes doctoring pitches. Smith knows a thing or two about the Wanderers - otherwise he wouldn't have publicly implored for a green pitch.

Aditya wrote:

taipan wrote:

And it was basically the same wicket was it not? The point is that the pitches in SA all have differing surfaces but in nature stay the same year after year. Yeh, you can spice up Wanderers for the first session but overall it will remain the same. cape Town will always take some spin but you cannot alter its nature so that it will turn square by lunch on day one.

The point is not how much the character of a pitch can be changed. The point is the willingness of the South Africans to offer themselves every conceivable advantage against England. That includes doctoring pitches. Smith knows a thing or two about the Wanderers - otherwise he wouldn't have publicly implored for a green pitch.

Every country does it so some extent. If you had read the article you would have seen that the article specifies Jo'burg specifically.

The acid test is that you don't see other countries complaining about our pitches the way they do about Indian pitches. The other thing is that our batsmen can play on any wickets in the world. Indian batsmen can't.

Brass Monkey wrote:
I don't agree with that. All Dhoni is actually saying is he wants pitches with a proper amount of zip in them. Monga made the point that if a better team than England played on that Ahmedabad pitch, it would've been a turgid draw. He's got a point.

Not a very realistic wish. I reckon he knows the country he captains. To get more bounce out of most pitches, they'd require some brickwork to be done. Indian clay doesn't offer itself to more bounce than it naturally produces without extensive subterranean work. That takes more time than he's got. Besides, the Australians who follow you on a tour of India, would love extra bounce. Would he then be singing a different tune?

mirchy wrote:
Not a very realistic wish. I reckon he knows the country he captains. To get more bounce out of most pitches, they'd require some brickwork to be done. Indian clay doesn't offer itself to more bounce than it naturally produces without extensive subterranean work. That takes more time than he's got. Besides, the Australians who follow you on a tour of India, would love extra bounce. Would he then be singing a different tune?

I don't buy into that one bit. No-one forced Ahmedabad to use the red clay when they re-layed the pitch. In this day and age it's a joke to say that groundsmen are forced into the use of local soil - furthermore, the ratios of sand, clay and soil being placed in the pitches again are the groundsman's prerogative. No ways.

Also, if you don't think that we like bounce then you're out of your mind. Dhoni's point is that a) so do the Indian spinners and b) the Indian batsmen would be able to cope better against our spinners. To repeat myself - Monga is correct, a better side - a different opposition would've made that Test a bore draw. Fortunately for India, they came up against England - who are gutless wonders.

To my mind, Hansie Cronje had promised India green tracks when he lost the 1996 India series 2-1 and he ambushed the Indians at Durban on a grassy pitch in test 1. Stephen Fleming has excessively grassy pitches prepared to negate India's batting after seeing their progress in Aus and Pak in 2004.

I do believe though we should have the balls to fight out on such tracks and apply ourselves over it. In NZ the move backfired nearly for NZ with bowlers of both sides wrecking the opposition for less than 250 in 3 of the four innings played at least in both tests but for the spinelessness of our batters despite famed names.

However there is a certain hypocrisy attached to such affairs. if a subi team collapses on a green wicket abroad with test ending in 3 days, it is their ability to bat in alien conditions that is questioned. If the same happens in sub-continent where visiting teams collapse, there is no end to whinging about pitches and dustbowls.

Batman wrote:To my mind, Hansie Cronje had promised India green tracks when he lost the 1996 India series 2-1 and he ambushed the Indians at Durban on a grassy pitch in test 1. Stephen Fleming has excessively grassy pitches prepared to negate India's batting after seeing their progress in Aus and Pak in 2004.

I do believe though we should have the balls to fight out on such tracks and apply ourselves over it. In NZ the move backfired nearly for NZ with bowlers of both sides wrecking the opposition for less than 250 in 3 of the four innings played at least in both tests but for the spinelessness of our batters despite famed names.

Durban is known for a grassy track, so it is hardly an ambush.

Meh, I dunno. Seems like the Sub Continental teams get all sorts of stick when they prepare turners, but if England, South Africa, or Australia prepare a green pitch with plenty of life, it's "good for test cricket."

And up until recently, it was a myth that Indian batsmen can't handle foreign conditions. SRT averages the same away as he does at home, Dravid averaged more away than at home, and VVS wasn't much different in his home and away record.

Let's look at KP's record in the Sub Continent and Middle East- It's pretty sh*t. Ditto Ponting. And yet for some reason this hole in their CVs isn't mentioned as often as it is for, say, Mahela Jayawardene in Australia and South Africa, when it comes to assessing ATG-ness.

Dravid's record in South Africa isn't the best AFAIK and Laxman's in England. But they weren't half bad in other tours. Ponting's (the good one, not these days' version) record in Pakistan, Lanka and Abu Dhabi isn't the worst at all, unlike Mahela who falls short regularly in non subcontinental conditions (averages something like 35 or so).

Sangakarra would be a good comparison. He should really be alongside the best.

Henry wrote: but if England, South Africa, or Australia prepare a green pitch with plenty of life, it's "good for test cricket."

Name one. Name the last time we prepared a greeny?

The way KP played in Ahmedabad against India's spinners would be the equivalent of Mahela backing away to Steyn and Morkel on a quick Joburg pitch because he couldn't handle the pace.

Who would get the most stick in that situation?

Brass Monkey wrote:

Henry wrote: but if England, South Africa, or Australia prepare a green pitch with plenty of life, it's "good for test cricket."

Name one. Name the last time we prepared a greeny?

Headingley 2010, Pakistan v Australia.

So, you're saying that about 17 home Tests ago we produced a greeny? It wasn't to do with the amount of rain? It was a designated greeny? 17 Tests ago? Produced a greeny against one of the better greeny attacks going?

We are dastardly. We are so naughty.

Henry wrote:The way KP played in Ahmedabad against India's spinners would be the equivalent of Mahela backing away to Steyn and Morkel on a quick Joburg pitch because he couldn't handle the pace.

Who would get the most stick in that situation?

If Jayawardene looked to slog Steyn or Morkel for six and got out despite not handling any of his first five balls, then he'd deserve the same as Pietersen. Pietersen's dismissal in the first innings was understandable, he's just not good enough against decent left arm orthodox.

All I'm saying is, what is a "good cricket pitch"? Is a turner a bad pitch? Is a seamer a bad pitch? I don't think so.

For me, a flat pitch is a bad pitch. Anything else is interesting. And it's not easy to prepare a pitch with pace and bounce. Look at Perth. They've been trying without success for 10 years to get the pace and bounce back into it, even though they have ideal weather conditions to do so. Also the West Indies pitches haven't had much life in them for a while. So what chance does Ahmedabad have?