India-Australia series: After long build-up, time for some action

But, that is easier said than done when the surface is prepared in such an unusual manner. For years now, Indian curators have used various tricks to give the home team the best advantage — and their counterparts worldwide do much the same. But, this pitch at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur is an interesting one in many ways.

Firstly, even looking at it from far it’s clear that it’s been selectively watered. Visually, it appears to have a greenish tinge for most of the surface, but this may well disappear on match morning, with two clear patches being left dry. The dry patches are outside the off-stump of left-hand batsmen, at either end. Now, Australia could potentially have six left-hand batsmen in their top eight, while India have just Ravindra Jadeja batting left-handed in their line-up. What makes it even more challenging is that India are likely to play two left-arm orthodox spinners, in Jadeja and Axar Patel.

What this means is that there will be readymade rough available for the left-arm spinner bowling over the stumps and attacking the batsman’s stumps. As the game goes on, with Nagpur expected to be bright and sunny, there will be other patches that will bring Ravichandran Ashwin and Nathan Lyon into the equation, against right-hand batsmen.

Naturally, there have been some Australians who believe this is a form of pitch doctoring. A more appropriate and accurate term is that this is a designer pitch. Except it’s not always a good idea to be too clever. Pitch preparation is not an exact science and despite all your best efforts you may not end up getting what you wanted. Also, changes in weather can play a major part.

Any which way, this series is going to be played on four fairly distinct surfaces, with the remaining three matches to be held in Delhi, Dharmsala and Ahmedabad.

India’s modus operandi against visiting teams in the most recent past has been to produce pitches that turn from the first ball. This has meant that the game has largely been reduced to which team played spin better. That has been a low-risk option against many teams because they did not have spinners of the quality India boasts or batsmen who had the wherewithal to overcome the threat.Australia have both. Lyon is world class in any conditions, exceptional even when the pitches don’t grip that much and on a minefield he can be unplayable. Lyon’s understudy, Todd Murphy, is rated highly and Ashton Agar provides variation and control with his left-arm spin. And India should definitely not take Travis Head’s part-time off breaks lightly: he bowls a flatter trajectory and puts enough revs on the ball to make him a handful if there is variable bounce.

With Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant, the two architects of India’s last series win against Australia out of action, India have a couple of holes to fill. KS Bharat is their best choice as wicketkeeper, especially on tricky surfaces and the batting spot is a toss-up between the form of Shubman Gill and the flair of Suryakumar Yadav.

The first of four parts is upon us and the stage is well and truly set. Time now to move on to see what the actors can produce.