Cricket, like no other game, banks on variety of factors that are usually not of great interest in any other sport. The pitch on which the game is played takes the highest place among them. As many things in life are based on perspectives like a task being easier for a group versus the same being difficult for others, so is batting or bowling on a cricket pitch based on the batsmen's skills. Imagine Perth , day 1 , 1st session of a test match with a team from sub continent touring put into bat by the Australian captain. Even if you are a remote follower of cricket, it is not hard to come up with a wild guess that the Australian bowling line up would break into the middle order of the visiting sub continental team straight before the end of session. It is often only a surprise if a touring Asian team goes down less than 3 wickets into the lunch and the surprise factor slowly turns such occurrences into accomplishments turning them eventually into benchmarks for players and fans alike.
PERTH vs DUST BOWLS
Now, imagine Mumbai Day 3, 1st session of a test match with a non sub continental team batting. No fan would be able to guess what could transpire in a day’s play in this scenario. Either the spinners could run through the batting order or the pitch could be unresponsive to spinners resulting in piles of runs being scored. What most fail to understand in cricket is that the two contrasting arts of bowling are not often talked about in isolation and not judged with the same scale. When someone like Mitchell Johnson rips through a batting line up bagging 5 wicket hauls and packing off batting line ups within a day, this is framed and beamed to the cricket followers to be more dramatic and exciting to watch than Ashwin and Jadeja claiming all wickets in a day in a sub continental pitch. If analysed closely, the skill levels to perform both the varieties of bowling are almost similar but with varying levels of physical and mental strength involved. While pace bowling being more demanding physically makes bowlers end up with shorter spells, spinners bowl unimaginably longer spells maintaining the same guile trying to beat batsmen with flight and variations exercising their wrists and fingers through the process. Fast bowlers usually do not succeed just by being raw. They generally need to setup a batsmen before they try to bring in their variation to get the batsmen out. With due credit given to both these arts of bowling, it is now down to the initial perception that I had quoted. The general agreed perception is that both these forms of bowling are duly credited when analysed as separate entities outside a cricket field but once this art is combined with the pitch we see a massive difference in the resulting attitude of people describing and following the game alike. When sub continental batsmen dance around a raising chin music bouncer we seem to appreciate the bowling unit and remotely ever care about the assistance from pitch. We squarely praise the tall and handsome bowler for making the ball raise from a good length. In contrast, when a spinner makes the batsmen look all at sea in what is called as a "dust bowl" the frame of reference with which the ball was described was the nature of the pitch rather than the skill of the bowler. As a follower of the game listening to expert opinions during and after the game, one is left wondering what these Asian teams should do to win abroad. An Asian ends up wondering why do we not prepare such fast wickets like the one in Perth and I wonder if the Australian fans ever wonder why they not have more of "dust bowls" down under. May be it is just the term "dust bowl" that makes it look worse. May be it is to hide a surprising fact that apart from few exceptions like Alastair Cook no one else from the non sub continent team has had greater success adapting to spin in recent times.
PERTH vs DUST BOWLS
Now, imagine Mumbai Day 3, 1st session of a test match with a non sub continental team batting. No fan would be able to guess what could transpire in a day’s play in this scenario. Either the spinners could run through the batting order or the pitch could be unresponsive to spinners resulting in piles of runs being scored. What most fail to understand in cricket is that the two contrasting arts of bowling are not often talked about in isolation and not judged with the same scale. When someone like Mitchell Johnson rips through a batting line up bagging 5 wicket hauls and packing off batting line ups within a day, this is framed and beamed to the cricket followers to be more dramatic and exciting to watch than Ashwin and Jadeja claiming all wickets in a day in a sub continental pitch. If analysed closely, the skill levels to perform both the varieties of bowling are almost similar but with varying levels of physical and mental strength involved. While pace bowling being more demanding physically makes bowlers end up with shorter spells, spinners bowl unimaginably longer spells maintaining the same guile trying to beat batsmen with flight and variations exercising their wrists and fingers through the process. Fast bowlers usually do not succeed just by being raw. They generally need to setup a batsmen before they try to bring in their variation to get the batsmen out. With due credit given to both these arts of bowling, it is now down to the initial perception that I had quoted. The general agreed perception is that both these forms of bowling are duly credited when analysed as separate entities outside a cricket field but once this art is combined with the pitch we see a massive difference in the resulting attitude of people describing and following the game alike. When sub continental batsmen dance around a raising chin music bouncer we seem to appreciate the bowling unit and remotely ever care about the assistance from pitch. We squarely praise the tall and handsome bowler for making the ball raise from a good length. In contrast, when a spinner makes the batsmen look all at sea in what is called as a "dust bowl" the frame of reference with which the ball was described was the nature of the pitch rather than the skill of the bowler. As a follower of the game listening to expert opinions during and after the game, one is left wondering what these Asian teams should do to win abroad. An Asian ends up wondering why do we not prepare such fast wickets like the one in Perth and I wonder if the Australian fans ever wonder why they not have more of "dust bowls" down under. May be it is just the term "dust bowl" that makes it look worse. May be it is to hide a surprising fact that apart from few exceptions like Alastair Cook no one else from the non sub continent team has had greater success adapting to spin in recent times.
Playing with the bat could have been a much better option for SA batsmen. Image Source: Photo by Ron Gaunt / BCCI / SPORTZPICS bcci.tv
SCHOOL BOY ATTITUDE
Genetically, Asian bowlers/spinners are medium built and use their wrist/fingers to impart variations to fool batsmen whereas the non Asian tall beasty Western bowlers use their strength to achieve the same result. With the game being designed and innovated in such a fair model in all other facets with expert pitch makers trying hard to replicate foreign surfaces in home nets (like http://www.cricket.com.au/news/hybrid-spin-wicket-cricket-australia-national-cricket-center-lyon-harris-west-indies-ashes-brisbane/2015-05-12 ) , it is hard to believe the raising complaints from visiting captains and the press referring to the pitch being unplayable when matches end by day 3 and more and more articles being written about the game not gaining anything as a result of such turfs. I have not seen any Indian captain complain about India losing in 3 days in recent tours of England or Australia, but we have always had touring captains unofficially or sometimes even officially trying to cry foul when they lose a test match in under 3 days. Like this instance where the Australian great Ricky Ponting did to lodge a complaint with the ICC (reference: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/06/1099547435874.html?from=storylhs ) making the win look more doctored by the home team instead of giving due credit to the skill of the spinner Murali Kartik who made the batsmen look clueless. Oddly enough, after the man of the match performance, Murali Kartik never played for India again and if I have to be cynical, we should blame such behaviour from the non sub continental touring teams for undermining such performances and not giving due credit to the player.
Genetically, Asian bowlers/spinners are medium built and use their wrist/fingers to impart variations to fool batsmen whereas the non Asian tall beasty Western bowlers use their strength to achieve the same result. With the game being designed and innovated in such a fair model in all other facets with expert pitch makers trying hard to replicate foreign surfaces in home nets (like http://www.cricket.com.au/news/hybrid-spin-wicket-cricket-australia-national-cricket-center-lyon-harris-west-indies-ashes-brisbane/2015-05-12 ) , it is hard to believe the raising complaints from visiting captains and the press referring to the pitch being unplayable when matches end by day 3 and more and more articles being written about the game not gaining anything as a result of such turfs. I have not seen any Indian captain complain about India losing in 3 days in recent tours of England or Australia, but we have always had touring captains unofficially or sometimes even officially trying to cry foul when they lose a test match in under 3 days. Like this instance where the Australian great Ricky Ponting did to lodge a complaint with the ICC (reference: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/06/1099547435874.html?from=storylhs ) making the win look more doctored by the home team instead of giving due credit to the skill of the spinner Murali Kartik who made the batsmen look clueless. Oddly enough, after the man of the match performance, Murali Kartik never played for India again and if I have to be cynical, we should blame such behaviour from the non sub continental touring teams for undermining such performances and not giving due credit to the player.
SA's phone number-ish scoreboard that generally Indain fans are familiar with in India's oversees tour. Image Source: Photo by Ron Gaunt / BCCI / SPORTZPICS bcci.tv
EXPERT OPINIONS MATTER
The experts who describe the game have to start realising that the game cannot move forward if the topic of balance between the bat and the ball merely ends as a lip service, so instead of projecting a fiery 5 wicket haul by a fast bowler assisted by his home turf as the ultimate bowling spell of all time versus downgrading a match winning spinner’s performance for the same reason of being assisted by his home turf, we should encourage innovative ways of preparing sporting wickets and leave the rest to the players. Similar to how an umpire warns the bowler to get himself out of the pitch in his follow through, it is better if everyone gets their mind out of the pitch to enjoying the beautiful game in its entirety by avoiding treating one as a lesser child over the other. By the time I wrote this article , Ashwin had got his 14th 5-for in test cricket in a turning track and the press meet had a similar tone of focussing on the pitch rather than his skill and Ashwin let it straight out of the heart putting the press in its place much like his carrom ball. http://www.bcci.tv/videos/id/1540/3rd-test-day-2-ind-vs-sa-press-conference-r-ashwin
The experts who describe the game have to start realising that the game cannot move forward if the topic of balance between the bat and the ball merely ends as a lip service, so instead of projecting a fiery 5 wicket haul by a fast bowler assisted by his home turf as the ultimate bowling spell of all time versus downgrading a match winning spinner’s performance for the same reason of being assisted by his home turf, we should encourage innovative ways of preparing sporting wickets and leave the rest to the players. Similar to how an umpire warns the bowler to get himself out of the pitch in his follow through, it is better if everyone gets their mind out of the pitch to enjoying the beautiful game in its entirety by avoiding treating one as a lesser child over the other. By the time I wrote this article , Ashwin had got his 14th 5-for in test cricket in a turning track and the press meet had a similar tone of focussing on the pitch rather than his skill and Ashwin let it straight out of the heart putting the press in its place much like his carrom ball. http://www.bcci.tv/videos/id/1540/3rd-test-day-2-ind-vs-sa-press-conference-r-ashwin
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