There will be turn, possibly square, and from the first day. Tests will get over inside three days. England deciding to include three spinners in the XI accentuated the spin talk. Former cricketers, columnists and fans in general were preparing for another trial by turn. Last year’s Australia series and three three-day Tests were still fresh in the mind.
After two exciting games in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, filled with twists and turns (of another kind), it can be said that the discussions on spin were exaggerated. Nobody knew how the pitches would behave and jumped to the conclusion that excessive spin was all that was going to be in store. Recent history was the foundation of this assumption. So it was not entirely baseless.
To the contrary, on offer were surfaces with assistance for slower bowlers, but not the kind seen in the Australia series or the England series in 2021, when Axar Patel took 27 wickets in three matches. In these two Tests which ended on the fourth day, pitches were more like the Indian ones of the old, where matches usually lasted five days. Even the England series of 2016 was played on such surfaces. The visiting team lost two matches after making 400 and 477.
If one expected India to roll out a snake pit for the second Test in the ongoing series because they had lost the first, there was a surprise. This one was tilted slightly in favour of the spinners, not overwhelmingly. That two of the most impactful bowlers in this match were Jasprit Bumrah and James Anderson proved that. Bowlers had to toil for success. There was a double-century and then, a century in the third innings of the match. The fourth saw England make nearly 300.
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This made for some interesting contest between bat and ball. Batters got runs if and when they applied themselves. Spinners were in it. And while Bumrah used the conditions to cause havoc with reverse swing, Anderson bowled beautifully with the new ball in the second innings. It was a classic example of an entity which was about to become extinct — a pitch with something for everybody.
The strip in Hyderabad had more turn than the one in Visakhapatnam. In fact, the ball spun in the first session of the match and also towards the end. But can a pitch really be dubbed a rank turner after two teams register 400-plus totals on that? It was a surface on which spinners like Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja had to work really hard to take wickets.
What this has effectively done is, it has paved the way for an even battle. If conditions are loaded heavily in favour of fast bowlers or spinners, the plan of the home team may backfire. India’s win in Cape Town on a strip screaming for fast bowlers and their defeat against Australia on a rapid turner in Indore last year are examples. In both cases, surface was the decider, not skills.
With this series poised tantalisingly at 1-1 with three to go, pitches will continue to be a subject of discussion. Hopefully, there will be no ‘surface tension’. Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamsala are geographically and climate-wise different from each other. Natural variations will play a part. Hopefully, things will not be doctored, for it has been seen that even without a number of first-choice players, India can beat good sides on pitches with something for everybody.