Atreyo Mukhopadhyay in Bengaluru
In cricket, they often say that ‘it was a good toss to lose’. If you look at the India-New Zealand first Test in Bengaluru, this was actually a good toss to win. Rohit Sharma got it right in overcast conditions and had an excellent chance to put the visitors under a stern test. Instead, what he did turned out to be catastrophic for his team.
In sports and in life, there can be bold decisions. There can also be decisions which can be classified as bizarre. India’s call to bat belongs to the second category. In conditions which required the floodlights to be switched on from the start of the game, the pitch was damp and moist. The move backfired spectacularly.
Rohit did acknowledge after the day’s play that it was an error of judgement. That was honest of him. He at least accepted that it was a mistake to take first strike on a pitch which had been under cover for the last three-four days due to persistent rains. The question is, how does a senior player and his think-tank endorse a decision like this.
It was more like Wellington or Dunedin, the climes the New Zealanders are familiar with. Visibility was low, there was moisture on the surface and it was a sticky pitch. The ball was bound to dominate the bat. It jumped awkwardly from a length at times and jagged around consistently in the first few hours. The New Zealanders found themselves at home and made merry.
The results, as is well known, was a shocker of a first innings. All out for 46 in a home Test was a record low for India and their third lowest total ever after the 36 in Adelaide in 2021 and 42 at Lord’s in 1976. This one coming amidst talks of qualifying for the World Test Championship final made it all the more discordant. The best of teams have bad times, but this was beyond that.
“We thought it (the pitch and conditions) won’t help the seamers much after the first session or so,” said Rohit after his team handed New Zealand a massive advantage. “There wasn’t much grass on the pitch either. We thought it would be much flatter than it turned out to be. It was a misjudgement from my part and I couldn’t read the pitch well,” the India captain said.
That was really honest of the skipper. He didn’t look for excuses or strange justifications. But for an experienced player like him, who is assisted by some of the most trusted cricket brains in the country, to take that call was nothing less than a shocker. Even the crowd found this difficult to comprehend. The news of India electing to bat sent shockwaves right at the start of the day.
“We have played on such wickets many times and have been successful to a great extent,” said Rohit. “Every batsman who went in had a plan of how to play because everyone knew what the pitch was and what was happening. But sometimes, it happens that you are trying to do something and that plan does not work. Today was a bad day for us. But we have played many such matches before. It was a challenge, but we should challenge ourselves as much as we can.”
Nothing to say against that either. Rohit was right in saying that players must test themselves against challenging conditions. However, whether this should be self-inflicted or otherwise was not answered. It’s good to be bold and this Indian team has been so over the last few years. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be topping the World Test Championship table. Perhaps, boldness can sometimes cause blindness and that’s what happed at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
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5@5: India’s shocker in Bengaluru | Inside story of Delhi capitals and why Sourav Ganguly was sidelined https://t.co/2vjmWTcAmH
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