This is not the first occasion on which Team India has been hung by its own petard. The manner of the 333-run defeat was humbling indeed, but it served a bigger purpose as a crystal clear reality check of Indian cricket as a whole. In deliberately under-preparing the pitch at Pune, the hosts were attempting to undermine the visiting Australians only to find that their own cricket in such conditions was so inadequate as to see the end of a dream run of 19 Tests without defeat at home. Much of the record of 13 wins in those 19 home Tests was built up while playing on reasonably good pitches that offered assistance to spinners gradually. This surface, however, was a throwback to the days of doctored pitches on which the Australian batsmen proved more resilient and their spinner Steve O’Keefe out-bowled the host’s famous spin twins, R. Ashwin and R. Jadeja.
The point is Team India has a far better chance of coping with the challenge of going on to play abroad if it plays its Tests on normal home pitches. By doing so, their strengths would be best served of tall scoring batsmen building a platform for skilful spin bowlers to exploit the collective weaknesses visiting batsmen display while playing in such conditions. Due credit must be given to the Australian captain Steve Smith who showed what extreme application of batting skill sets could do even in bad playing conditions. If he was given a number of chances to take his team way ahead in a rare second innings century in India by an Australian batsman, India’s butter-fingered close-in catching was to be blamed. With three Tests left, India will probably have no option but to go for more designer pitches, but that could be a deceptive and self-defeating path. Team India does not need bad Test pitches to play winning cricket.
