This was a terrible advert for Test cricket
➤ The Ahmedabad pitch was not fit for purpose but do not expect the ICC to walk into a political storm by taking action
Emphasis has to be on the last syllable. The pitch at the new stadium in Ahmedabad was bad – too bad for a Test match or any other form of cricket. By the International Cricket Council rule book, what should happen now is that the pitch at the new stadium is marked as “unfit”. Not “average”, not “below average”, not “poor”, but “unfit” – not because it was unfair to England, but because it was unfit for any batsman to bat on after day one.
Spectators and broadcasters, who pay the bills, therefore have nothing left to fill the last three of five scheduled days.
By that ICC rule book, after bureaucracy has run its course, the pitch at the Narendra Modi Stadium should be suspended from international cricket for a period “between 12 and 24 months”. But it will not, of course, for two main reasons.
One is that the fourth and final Test is due to begin next Thursday at the very same venue. Batting might be slightly easier then in any event, because the ball will not be pink but red, and therefore a touch softer – less liable to skid on – and batsmen will find it more visible.
The second reason why the Narendra Modi stadium will not be banned lies in the name. The ground has just been renamed after India’s prime minister, who set the whole project in motion when he was chief minister of Gujarat. Owing to Covid, the match referee and the umpires are Indian, and it would be naive to expect that they will be dobbing India’s most powerful man in it.
Cynics might add a third reason why Ahmedabad will emerge from this controversy unscathed. India’s omnipotence in cricket. If the England and Wales Cricket Board complains publicly about the pitch, India will not tour England this summer. End of story, because it would be the end of the ECB’S finances. But whatever the contexts and circumstances, the third Test pitch was “unfit” by day two. On day one, one batsman from each side reached 50, while the surface just about held together. On day two, nobody could score 30. The amount of turn was utterly unpredictable. Joe Root, a part-time off-spinner, took five wickets for eight. Enough said by the prosecution.
These are exceptional times, though, and they have had their impact on the batsmen of both sides, lowering the standards and totals. Nobody has been able to play a firstclass game – a game that is not an international but is competitive at a lower level – since last year. No chance for anyone to practise his game in the middle against spin.
In consequence, when every game is a Test, as it has been for England since they arrived in Sri Lanka in early January, and for India since their Test series against Australia started in mid-december, there is no escape for the batsman who is out of form and confidence. Ollie Pope keeps getting his off stump knocked back by straight balls. What can he do but go to the nets which, in Ahmedabad, like the middle, are not up to scratch, given the description of them as “spicy” by India’s captain, Virat Kohli.
So, totals were lower in this Test owing to various factors: a pink ball, batsmen out of nick mid-series, brilliant spin bowling by India – the novelty effect of Axar Patel in only his second Test combined with the multiple mysteries of Ravichandran Ashwin – and India’s need for a result pitch after losing the first Test in Chennai. Never mind the long and complex story of why English batsmen are brought up facing so little spin.
Throw in the on-field umpiring, too, not because it was bad or biased (the television umpiring is a completely different matter), but because umpires now are “outers”, not “not-outers”. Since the DRS system was introduced, umpires around the world have seen what a high percentage of deliveries would have hit the stumps but for the batsman’s pads. So, the umpires in this series have been erring in the bowler’s favour, giving batsmen out on “umpire’s call”, no longer giving them the traditional benefit of the doubt.
We are in a more nationalistic era, too. Cricket’s age of chivalry, when you were hospitable to touring teams on and off the field, has gone. Home advantage has always been exploited to some extent, but never so excessively as in this series.
The simple solution is to deduct World Test Championship points for a substandard pitch. If India, instead of gaining 60 points for winning the third Test, had been deducted 60, we can be certain that the pitch at the Modi stadium would not have disintegrated as it did.