Knight: India are at a disadvantage by preparing spin-friendly pitches early on
Former England opening batsman Nick Knight believes that India are playing into the hands of England spinners by preparing turning pitches from day one.
England are the only team to win a Test series in India in the past 20 years. England won the 2012 four Test match series 2-1 under the captaincy of Sir Alastair Cook. One of the striking factors of that series win was the England spinners spearheaded by two off-spinners Graeme Swann and Money Panesar outperformed their Indian counterparts playing in their backyard.
The current five-match Test series is currently tied at 1-1 after two matches. Interestingly this time too, England’s spin attack consisting of two debutants has out-performed the Indian spinners.
Knight, in an exclusive interview with Sportsboom.com, questions India’s strategy of preparing turning pitches and at the same time highlights England’s clever spin bowlers selection.
Knight highlights the complexities of playing spin in Indian conditions. He emphasised the challenge posed not just by dramatic turn and bounce, but the natural variations. England, recognising this, strategically selected taller bowlers like Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir to take advantage of the greater variation caused by their height.
“Spin is India’s strength in Indian conditions. You sometimes have to put into the pot what the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses are. I played in India enough to realise the tough bit for me playing spin wasn’t the fact that the ball turned and bounced dramatically,” said Knight.
“It was the fact that the natural variation, some balls would turn a bit, some balls would turn dramatically. That’s what’s really hard because you can’t set yourself as a batter to line up any particular ball because some will perform slightly differently.
“England have been really smart and they’ve worked out that if you are delivering from six foot four then that exaggeration is greater. That variation is greater than if you’re bowling at a lower height because the balls won’t react as much off the pitch by its nature,” he said.