Getting down and dirty should excite fans

ROBERT CRADDOCK ANYONE else out there loving the return of dusty deck cricket?

A ball had not even been bowled in the first Test at Pune when there were social media calls for the ICC pitch inspector to investigate the dry, parched overcooked first Test pitch. That would be right. Cricket has become such a batsman’s game that anything that disrupts the flow of rampant run-scoring is in danger of being branded more unnatural than Donald Trump’s hair colour.

Does anyone actually ask the wider public what they think? Or what they occasionally want?

No one argues that 20-over and 50-over cricket should be handed over to batsmen but Test cricket needs occasional changes of flavour. The sight of Australia’s batsman scrapping, clawing and getting down, dirty and occasionally exposed on day one in Pune was riveting stuff.

A sterner sort of game was being played under the banner of cricket, one which required fierce concentration, surgeonlike skill with the occasional dash of twinkle-toed bravado.

Thirty seemed a solid individual score.

Replays showing bowlers kicking up dirt in their delivery strides and balls bring up dust were as haunting as the sight of chimneys of smoke from an old-time enemy battleship coming over the horizon.

It just adds theatre to the game and sadly we don’t get it as often as we should.

Pitch technology has become so superior to what it was a few decades ago that many modern wickets are the same.

The days of the horrible wickets are gone. Some people celebrate this fact but the occasional dodgy deck brings a special sort of drama that the game occasionally needs.

You don’t enjoy many of them but one in a while is like that wickedly rich chocolate bar you know you shouldn’t like but you just do.

The controversy of Matt Renshaw retiring for a toilet stop should not mask the les- sons of his outstanding halfcentury.

Old-time Indian batsmen say the best way to play the turning ball is to get as close to the pitch of it, or as far away from it, as possible so you either smother the turn or give the ball a chance to turn.

Renshaw did this well. He is an unusual package. In some ways he is still a boy but there are times when he plays like an old sweat.