The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
India move back the boundary rope
Nagpur’s 10-yard extension means batsmen need to run more, hit longer and chances of Amit Mishra getting a game are brighter
AT EDEN Gardens last week, Ben Stokes bowled a bouncer. It was fast, it reared up sharply, and Hardik Pandya was hurried up by the pace-bounce combo. He went for a pull but was late on the shot and got a thick edge. However, to Stoke’s surprise, the ball flew over third man for a six. The boundaries were relatively small, the modern-day bats have fat edges and the pace-length got no justice. It can all be dispiriting for a fast bowler. In fact, even more so for spinners, especially the wrist specialists like Amit Mishra for there is no place to hide. Luckily for aggressive seamers and spinners good news awaits them at Nagpur. Vast acres of stadium space awaits them at the arena which is probably the biggest in India.
News came in late on Friday evening that Indian management have told the stadium authorities not to get coy about the size of the boundaries. ‘Keep it to 75 yards all round’ was the message. It’s easy to see why – it brings in Amit Mishra into the picture. They no longer need to think of using run-containing bowlers (read Parvez Rasool) and instead use the spinners as attacking options. It also helps the England team of course and it promises to throw up a fascinating contest.
First a comparison with the normal grounds in India. On an average, most of the Indian ground the longest areas like long-on would be not more than 65 yards. No wonder 350 plus targets are being chased down without much of fuss in the recent times in this country. It’s set to change in Nagpur, though. Last March, the VCA ground hosted 9 games of T20 World Cup and only twice 170 plus runs were scored by any team. The average score at the ground remained 120 plus and the slow nature of the pitch has ensured batsmen try hard to get big runs. The news is that the slow tracks are set to change here as the authorities have relaid the pitch and if VCA officials are to be believed this pitch will assist bowlers while batsmen will find the ball coming on nicely to the bat.
All around the arena, the boundaries would be of 75 yards and that is definitely set to even up the contest.
Run India Run
Now for the impact of a bigger, make it normal, ground on batting. Barring Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, Indians aren’t all that fast runners between the wickets. Especially, with the likes of Yuvraj Singh and Kedar Jadhav in the mix. In Pune, when Jadhav played that knock of his life, he talked about how he was hassled by Kohli’s frenetic running. In Nagpur, the Indians would have to run hard to make up for the lack of monster hits. Would the twos and threes end up stemming India’s charge?
On grounds with boundary ropes pulled in, batsmen hit big shots without breaking into sweat. Now, at the longer boundaries, they can’t ease into those hits as nonchalantly as they normally would. Even a six would have to be hit in a gap, if you get the drift, so that mishits if any don’t carry to a fielder. It’s one thing to hit 90 yard sixes when the actual boundaries are around 60, its quite another matter when you know you need to clear 75 yards. The pressure is entirely different.
Conventional hitters
It would also be interesting to see how the Indian batsmen go about the task of hitting. They are mostly conventional hitters – in the sense that they thread the regular arcs in the ground. In a big arena, it would help to have inventive hitters like say Sam Billings with his lap shots and reverse sweeps. You are then picking the usually untenanted areas, and targeting them with innovation. When Suresh Raina tried his shuffles to the off in Kanpur, we know how it went down – the leg stump was yorked out. If a batsman has shots 360 degrees around the ground, it then takes out the vastness of the stadium out of equation. You really don’t have to flex your muscles hard and try to clear a cowcorner or a long-on. Instead you can target the unmanned fine-leg or areas behind square and get your runs.
In the here and now, though, the Indian team has reasons to look forward to this game. They can bring in Mishra especially considering how well Yuzvender Chahal bowled in the Powerplay and almost got India into the game.
Now they can continue to attack with Mishra and try to capitalise on England’s weakness against spin. The likes of Jason Roy aren’t great against spin and India can look to squeeze in the pressure. England too can attack India with short balls – if they fancy that line of attack – and their seamers can confidently do what they do without wondering about leaking runs. Despite taking Adil Rashid for first T20 game, England didn’t bowl him because their seamers sealed the deal. Here in Nagpur, they can forget all those worries and go for the attack. All in all, it’s going to be fascinating battle.