Pitches don’t win cricket matches. Quality cricket does. However good or bad the wicket, you still need to play quality cricket to win the match. When India travelled Down Under in 2018-19 and 2020-21, not once did we hear Virat Kohli or Ravi Shastri complain about the wicket. Not once did Rohit Sharma or Ajinkya Rahane say the WACA wicket was not up to the mark. India played outstanding cricket and won. So if anyone says India will win in Dubai or have an unfair advantage because of the pitch, it actually makes little sense. Win or lose, it will not be because of the pitch. It will depend on who plays better in the big knockout semi-final.
What defines a good pitch? For some Australian experts and journalists, a wicket which offers help to the spinners is a poor one. The underlying assumption is that a good wicket has to have lots of runs if it is a 50-over contest. The question is: who has helped set this benchmark? Why is it that a wicket which helps the spinners a wee bit is a bad one?
The big semi-final will test the players’ character. How good is someone in the conditions in Dubai when the pressure is on? Can he stand up to the different kinds of challenges that are thrown at him?
Ahead of an India-Australia clash, the narrative can’t be about the pitch. Rather, it is and should be about Australia’s batting against Indian spin. As Michael Clarke said, “Our bowling might be lacking a bit of experience in the absence of Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood, but our batting has a huge amount of experience in the lineup. They are good enough to bat and score in any condition.”
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In fact, we celebrate Steve Smith because he is able to play a masterclass in any conditions. It was Smith who won Australia the 2015 World cup semi-final against India. And more recently, he has been joined by Travis Head who has played some real special knocks against India. Make no mistake, Australia have the firepower with the bat. And that’s what makes them the world champions in this format.
Few can do what Smith can, and that’s why he is revered and celebrated. There are some in this Australian team who are good enough to win a match single-handedly. Josh Inglis, for example, is an excellent player of spin. Glenn Maxwell too can turn a match on its head and we saw that in the 2023 World Cup encounter against Afghanistan. These are quality players and Australia would hope they step up to the challenge. If they do, they elevate themselves as cricketers.
If they don’t, it will be India, yet one more time under Rohit’s captaincy, that will be out there in Dubai on March 9. In either case, the pitch is just a bystander. Not the main act in the drama. To make it into one is to fail the sport. Fail the players and the rivalry. The 22 players deserve better, and so do we.
For many in India, Australia are the new Pakistan and this match is now cricket’s greatest rivalry. The ICC wanted this game, and they have got it.
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