No team in the world would have beaten India in the conditions we saw in Nagpur for the third Test.
I suppose the defeat, which resulted in a series loss, was anticipated after seeing how South Africa fared in the first Test in Mohali. It was certainly a bad wicket and I really hope the ICC takes action to prevent teams from preparing such one-sided wickets at home in the future.
It is also possible India’s losses in the T20 and ODI series prompted the kind of surfaces we are seeing in the Test series.
I haven’t seen anyone take India to task about the quality of the wickets and it has become a major problem because it allows home side’s to get away with murder.
It is possible that people have been hesitant to criticise the conditions because the BCCI controls world cricket. I think every country in the world is generally hesitant to criticise the BCCI because they are so powerful and a lot of countries depend on them financially.
The sponsors haven’t gotten their money’s worth, but I think it’s up to the ICC to take up the issue, rather than the sponsors themselves.
Even the day/night Test in Adelaide between Australia and New Zealand only lasted three days. Considering that the whole idea is to grow the game and get more people at the venue, it seems counter-productive that the Test failed to reach day four.
Ravi Shastri made a comment over the weekend that one-day cricket has impaired batsmen’s ability to graft for runs and spend long hours at the crease.
I agree with him. It’s an issue I have raised for a while now and it has become clear that T20 and ODI cricket have started to take effect on Test batsmen.
While the pitches were bad, the batsmen should have done better. Too many wickets were given away. The dedication from the Proteas batsmen wasn’t there and it was surprising that we struggled so much. However, I don’t believe any other team in the world would have done better in Nagpur.
Ravi Ashwin is a brilliant bowler in those conditions and no-one would have survived. The only way to counter that ODI mentality in Test cricket is to be mentally organised, seeing as batting is very instinctive.
