A red soil surface at a new Test venue, an early start, and the possibility of bad light in the evening awaits India and South Africa
Karthik Krishnaswamy20-Nov-20256:22
‘Gambhir took the blame because he felt curators should not be blamed’
After the events of Kolkata, how will Guwahati play out? What kind of pitch can we expect at the Barsapara Stadium? What do India, 1-0 down after losing to South Africa inside three days on an Eden Gardens pitch with deadly uneven bounce, want from the surface?Two days out from the second India-South Africa Test, this much can be said about the Guwahati pitch: it is a red-soil surface with an even covering of grass — similar to the one used in Ahmedabad for the first Test against West Indies last month, though less green, and a certain amount of grass is likely to be mown off before the match begins. The pitch was watered on Thursday afternoon.These signs point to certain intentions: for a pitch that provides bounce and holds together well at least for the first two days or so, before becoming increasingly amenable to spin.Intentions, however, don’t always translate to what actually happens when the match begins. And this, according to India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak, is what played out in Kolkata.Related
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Four days after India head coach Gautam Gambhir had said they had got “exactly the pitch we were looking for” at Eden Gardens, and that the curator had been “very, very helpful” in providing it, Kotak said this wasn’t what happened. Gambhir spoke as he did, Kotak said, to divert flak away from curator Sujan Mukherjee and onto himself, and that neither India nor the curator had wanted the pitch to behave as it did.”When Gautam came for the press conference after the match and took all the blame on himself — he said we had asked for [that pitch] — he did that because he felt the curators shouldn’t be blamed,” Kotak said. “[…] Every country plays to their strengths. In India that is spin. Ever since I’ve come in, every time, we have the same conversation, that the Test match should go on for four days, four-and-a-half days. All we want is a bit of spin [in the pitch], because spin is our strength.”[…] What happened in the last match, after the first day, you could see that [the pitch] was crumbling, a bit of soil was coming [off the surface]. That wasn’t expected. Even if we had expected that much spin, it was after the third day, or on the evening of the third day. Even the curator didn’t want this. No one wanted what happened.”From the second day, whether the wicket became too dry, or whether — and this is my reading — the top layer became too dry, and the underneath layer was very hard because there was a lot of rolling, and [the pitch behaved as it did] because of this. You can ask the curator, or ask anyone — no one asked for a match that would end in two days, or for square turn.”Well, then.If you read between Gambhir’s lines, Kotak’s lines, all the talk in Kolkata surrounding the lack of watering of the pitch in the days leading up to the Test match, and all the evidence of Test matches in India over recent years, a possible narrative begins to emerge.India want a certain amount of turn on day one to minimise the toss advantage. They ask curators for this. But the visual evidence of the pitch prepared by the curator doesn’t ease their fears of a too-flat surface that renders their spinners ineffective in the first innings should they happen to bowl first.So they begin to meddle, insisting the pitch needs to be drier, to have less grass, to be dry and bare in certain areas… and pretty soon, with India’s anxiety and their lack of belief in (or respect for) an expert’s ability to do his job properly stirred into a pot that initially only contained reasonable intentions, chaos ensues.Given what unfolded in Kolkata, given the result of that Test match, and given the furore that has followed, India may be looking for a certain amount of course-correction in Guwahati.What sort of pitch does that leave us with, then, and what sort of Test match?”The red-soil wicket, generally, if you ask me, will probably have a little more bounce,” Kotak said. “And how much moisture is there, that is important. So that again [depends] on the weather.”In Kolkata also, it was surprising when, actually, the top surface was coming out. No team would ask that we want it to blast [ball causing the soil to explode on impact] on the second day. Anybody would understand that, it is not rocket science. So this wicket probably will play better, I think.”How much seam movement, how much live grass is there at the end of tomorrow evening, before they cover the wicket, and what kind of weather we will have from morning to evening, I also personally don’t know, so it will be very difficult to comment on that, but it should be a good wicket, it should be four-five days of good cricket.”The Kolkata pitch brought both seamers and spinners into play while being excessively helpful to both. Guwahati, if results match stated intentions, could give us one where both seamers and spinners will be in play but will have to work harder for their wickets.Conditions at Barsapara Cricket Stadium at 4.40pm two days before the second Test•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfoOne other factor could have an effect on the match. On Saturday, Guwahati will become India’s 30th and easternmost Test venue. Play, accordingly, will start at 9am, half an hour earlier than at other Indian venues. This, however, may not necessarily make up for how far east Guwahati is of India’s standard-time meridian. time, or tea-garden time, which governs the working hours in Assam’s tea estates, is a full hour ahead of IST.The early start, then, could mean a little more moisture in the pitch compared to Kolkata (though probably not venues located further west) but it may not make up for how early the sun sets in Guwahati.Piet Botha, South Africa’s bowling coach, suggested that bad light could be a factor. “Probably end of play at 4 o’clock,” he said. “I saw yesterday it was already dark by 4-ish.”Botha felt seamers could get a bit of early help too, drawing a parallel between Guwahati and Durban, which sits on South Africa’s east coast, where Test matches begin an hour earlier than Tests in Cape Town on the opposite coast.”I thought it would be cooler,” he said. “It was quite hot at 9 o’clock. But obviously it will be a little bit more moisture, so I think in terms of the first hour, the new ball should play a role. For how long, we’re not sure.”We’ll have to see. I know back home in Durban, we start at 9 o’clock [typically 9.30am], and sometimes the ball goes around for the first hour, and then it settles down.”To recap: Guwahati will make its Test debut with a red-soil pitch with some grass on it (though we can’t yet be sure how much). There is potential for bounce and carry, and the pitch is not expected to turn alarmingly at least on the first two days. There could be early moisture for the seamers to exploit, and potentially early finishes owing to bad light.All this could help stretch the Test match into day four, if not day five, if nothing unexpected happens. If.