Mahendra Singh Dhoni is known for being captain cool, for rock-solid assurance in tight situations and for his astute leadership that resembles that of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi.
But his propagating turning pitches from day one must have come as a shock to those who are fighting hard to save Test cricket.
The thrilling Test matches between Australia and South Africa followed by the pulsating Test match at the Wankhede Stadium are ideal advertisement for Test cricket that is expected to test skills, endurance and temperament.
However, Dhoni's comment about having pitches turning from the first day indicates his naiveté on the subject of pitch preparation.
He also seems to disregard the universal truth that no matter what the format of cricket being played, the basics of a player's skills are fine-tuned in the longer version.
Dhoni doesn't seem to be a follower of cricket history. In the era of uncovered pitches, Indian pitches were so dusty from day one that after bowling one over each with the new ball, the players would rub the ball on the outfield and the ball would start turning at right angles.
In the 1969 series against Australia and later in the 1972-73 series against Tony Lewis's MCC team, spinners found it difficult to control turn as even a straighter ball would turn and bounce.
Karsan Ghavri who made his debut during the India-West Indies series in 1974-75 recounts Pataudi's funny instructions in his first Test match.
“Karsan, the first three overs are your warm-up. Bang the ball so that shine will be off but in case you get a wicket, you will get three more overs and that will be your stretching” Pataudi said.
A rarity
Despite preparing turning pitches Indians very rarely had an upper hand save for a few matches. The bat-pad technique of Peter May and Colin Cowdrey that made mystery bowler Ramadhin ineffective is a forgotten art though Dilip Vengsarkar employed that technique admirably well.
A few years ago when the Wankhede pitch was intentionally under-prepared, change bowler Michael Clarke was made to look like Bishan Singh Bedi, our batting stalwarts fared that badly.
Even Marlon Samuels made things difficult for Indian batsmen in the Mumbai Test match recently. Are our present day batsmen equipped to play on turning pitches? Certainly not!
A Test match pitch is expected to have good carry and help fast bowlers on the first day and later aid batsmen till the wear and tear of the pitch start helping spinners.
Dhoni being a wicketkeeper ought to have accepted the fact that his fast bowlers were bowling too short on the first day and were not making any effort to move the ball which Zaheer Khan would have done.
After capturing nine wickets and scoring a century, if Ashwin finds fault with the nature of the Wankhede pitch, something is basically wrong with his thought process which will hopefully change with experience.
As Bishan Bedi rightly said, “It's too early for Ashwin to comment on the nature of the pitch. To be a top class bowler you need to bowl well on good pitches too.”
There is definitely scope for improvement in the preparation of pitches for Test matches in India. But asking for pitches to turn from day one is not the solution, as the paying public will be deprived of quality batting and bowling.
Test match is the real thing. Other formats are fun.
Keywords: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, cricket pitches
"The thrilling Test matches between Australia and South Africa followed by the pulsating
Test match at the Wankhede Stadium are ideal advertisement for Test cricket that is
expected to test skills, endurance and temperament."
Only those for whom cricket is a profession (cricket journalists e.g.) can have the conceit to
think that 1 day of frantic cricket plus 4 days of agonizingly boring cricket = pulsating test
matches. This suggestion that we should put in 4 8 hour days of sheer mental torture that
was Wankhede, for the crumbs of the final day not only shows a fundamental disconnect
from the lives of ordinary non-cricketing people, it also drives a stake through the heart of
test cricket by encouraging curators to further formulate such madness.
The greater joke though is to suggest that It is thrilling for teams to get out for 45 and 95 in
a match because of a pitch that assists fast bowlers from day one, but not okay for a match
to unfold exactly like that because of spinners.
I won't criticise Dhoni for asking pitches favoring spinners for tests
at home because every host country prepares pitches in favor of the host's strengths mostly pace down under, SA,WI,England etc etc. But if Dhoni loses the toss and has to bat second and fourth, Dhoni won't be happy playing on a turning wicket against Aussie or England spinners. About reading pitches one of the very worst, if NOT the worst reading was by Azharuddin against England (was that Lord's?)putting them to bat after winning the toss and Gooch went on to score an individual career best of more than 300 and went on to a great victory over India.
Reading the article, I get the impression that the writer misunderstood Dhoni's comments.
This article is a big farce on the face. To ridicule somebody like Dhoni who has a very good insight on the game is joke.
Ideally , Indian pitches should assist spinners with bounce and spin from day one itself. And then by day five, it should turn more.
There is no point in preparing flat tracks so that the batsman can score centuries and test match ends in a draw.
Test match will be interesting to watch if there is something in pitch for both batsmen and bowlers for all five days.
When you go to England or Australia or West Indies(in 1980's) or South Africa,they all prepared wickets to suit their quicks. And their wickets had something for their quicks for all five days.
So whats wrong if Dhoni is asking for pitches which assist his spinners from day one. People are stereotyped into believing that batsmen should score centuries in the first four days and spinners coming to the scene
Krish is right! Aswin never asked for turner from day one but he said there should be some bounce on day one!
Ashwin clearly said he understood that there won't be any turn but mentioned that he was disappointed that there was no bounce either. Now, coming to think of it, there is nothing wrong in asking the ball to bounce higher than the knee roll?
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