Shamik Chakrabarty at Eden Gardens
The dust was settling on the first Test. The team buses had left the stadium. But the groundsmen at Eden Gardens were working assiduously, watering the pitch that had played havoc over the last two-and-a-half days. “Arre match ke pehle paani dena chahiye tha (the pitch should have been watered before the match),” someone quipped. Gautam Gambhir refused to be wise after the event.
Last year against New Zealand, India suffered a home whitewash after opting to play on snakepits. The team did well on placid pitches in England in the summer. The team management seemingly didn’t learn from its mistakes and chose to play on a lottery deck again, against the world Test champions. Another home defeat ensued. Before Gambhir, India had lost four home Tests in 10-odd years. Under him, India have already lost four in a little over 12 months. Is the head coach overestimating his side’s ability to play spin on square turners? The numbers don’t lie.
“There were no demons in this wicket,” said Gambhir at the post-match press conference. “It was not an unplayable wicket. Temba Bavuma, Axar (Patel), Washi (Washington Sundar) made runs. The point is that if we keep talking about wickets, if you call it a turning track, see how many wickets were taken by the seamers. The majority of the wickets went to the seamers.”
To be fair to him, the head coach didn’t pass the buck and owned the decision to play on such a surface. “This was exactly the pitch we were looking for,” said Gambhir. “And I feel that, as I just mentioned before, the curator was very, very helpful and this is exactly what we wanted, and this is exactly what we got. When you don’t play well, this is what happens.”
The Eden pitch demanded mental fortitude, the right temperament and a proper defensive technique. Bavuma showed those qualities in abundance. From India’s side, KL Rahul in the first innings and Washington were the tenuous links to quality batting. The majority of the batsmen in this team are flat-track bullies. They find themselves out of their comfort zone when the degree of difficulty increases.
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“I don’t think it was a tough wicket,” Gambhir observed. “It was a wicket where your technique can be judged, your mental toughness can be challenged, and more important than that is your temperament. Because if you are looking to grind, if you are looking to bat long, then you can make runs. But if you are in an attacking mindset or if you try to play attacking cricket, then it is difficult. All the people who have played good defence, whether it is KL Rahul, Temba or Washington, all of them have made runs. So ultimately, as I said earlier, if your defensive game is solid, then it is not a wicket where you can’t make runs. We have played on such wickets before.”
One of the team’s celebrated enforcers, Rishabh Pant, looked pretty vulnerable in the second innings before being put out of his misery by Simon Harmer. The coach, however, defended the wicketkeeper-batsman, who returned to the Test fold in this game after missing the home series against the West Indies.
“From Rishabh’s point of view, he is a world-class batter in this format,” said Gambhir. “He plays in a certain way. He can take the game away as well. And we will keep backing him to play this way as well, because sometimes you have got to tell people to play their natural game. And more importantly, be a little smart as well. So I think he is playing after a long time, and I’m sure in the future he will deliver.”
India missed a trick by not starting with Jasprit Bumrah from one end on Day 3. According to Gambhir, two left-arm spinners to start with was the right call. “Again, all the calls, most of the calls, that we have taken today, tactically, were, I thought, spot on,” Gambhir stonewalled. “Sometimes we can keep talking about it when we don’t get the results. If we had got the results, no one would have said that not starting with Bumrah or a fast bowler was the wrong move. I thought, tactically, we were fine.”
Was the head coach in denial?
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