Anatomy of a batsman in India

I was sitting with Anita just after the new year and she asked me what my new year resolution was. Much like Hacker’s “no policy” policy, over the years my general new year resolution has been not to have any resolutions. And I have been pretty good at sticking to it. But for some reason, this time I told her that I would start a blog this year. So, now I am going to try to live up to that this year.

The question of course, is what do I write about? I guess, logically one should write about things one is comfortable with, one enjoys, and so on. So, in my case that would probably mean I would end up writing about cricket, old hindi film songs, books and such like. Which is a good enough place to start with, I guess.

There is a test match which has just ended between India and South Africa and it’s been a good one. (There is actually one also going on between England and Australia but that is quite frankly, second rate stuff. Though if English newspapers are to be believed, not only are they the only countries playing cricket but it is the finest cricket being played since 1877!) Dale Steyn on day 3 was phenomenal and Kallis on day 4 was outstanding. I was wondering how the Indian batting would cope up. Post Kallis it was very unlikely that we would win but we needed to draw. Otherwise, we would be back at the same old situation of India not travelling well and Indian batsmen failing the “real test” – batting on Australian and South African wickets. Thankfully, that did not happen.

Which really brings me to the point I want to write about. Why is it that the “real test” of a batsman – especially an Indian batsman – is always in batting in Australia and South Africa. Sure, it’s difficult to bat there but isn’t it difficult to bat anywhere? Some pitches are easier and some tougher. Overall, isn’t it tricky everywhere? A standard answer to that is that Australian and South African pitches are fast and bouncy whereas Indian pitches, by contrast are slow, dead and very easy for batsman to play.

Now, that unfortunately is an argument I cannot countenance. Why is playing quality pace on a fast ground any more difficult than playing quality spin on a slow pitch rank turner? How many batsmen could have played Gavaskar’s 96 in his last test at Bangalore? How many batsmen could have managed Tendulkar’s 136 against Pakistan in Chennai in 99? Yes, both these innings ended in losses for the team but we are talking batsmanship here. Or take for example, Tendulkar’s and Laxman’s fifties against Australia on that minefield of a pitch in Bombay in 2004(?) when the test ended in 2 days. Those 2 innings effectively won the game for India- and most batsman would have found it difficult to play those innings. Why then are bouncy pitches in Australia and South Africa the benchmark, why not rank turners in India?

Of course, one could argue that, in spite of the odd turner, pitches in India are inherently batsman friendly. But is that a fair argument?

I had a look at the record of the top non sub-continental players in India (assuming that conditions would be fairly similar for Pakistanis and SL). The below table contains all such batsman who have scored more than 7000 runs in test cricket (why 7000? Quite arbitrary; it just gave a decent sample size) and have played in India. There are 25 such players and I have calculated the ratio of their india average to their overall batting average as well. Admittedly sample size in the India case is small but that has to be lived with.

The table is very instructive.




Source: Statsguru, cricinfo

Almost 60% of them have averages in India which are more or less similar to their career averages (+-20%). That is somewhat against the theory that India is very easy for batsmen. Clearly most batsmen tend to play just as well in the rest of the world as they do in India. In fact, one could almost say that India is very representative of the entire test playing world and is not a place for batsmen to salivate. It is quite likely that if we looked at "career vs India" records for Indian players they would be very different and not so representative. But I feel that in that case a fairer comparison would be to check players' records in their home countries with the rest of their careers.

Further, of all those players above who don’t average around their career figures, surprisingly those who average higher in India are all pre 1990 players – an era where batting was not so easy. All those who do average less in India than their careers are all post 1990 players (other than Haynes) – again making a mockery of India’s so called easy, dead pitches in the last few years.

Finally, look at some of the players who have not performed so well in India – Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara, Graeme Smith…now I am not suggesting that these are not great players. They are! But hasn’t India been their real test…and haven’t they failed it? Why is that when discussing their careers, nobody says- “oh, they are not really good players because their record in India is very poor”? It doesn’t even get raised…because batting in India is anyway supposed to be very easy. But on the other hand, every Indian player is always scrutinized about his record in Australia or South Africa.

So, the bottom line to me is that hard bouncy pitches are not all that great in themselves and should not be a end, just for their sake. Batting on all kinds of surfaces requires skill and what matters is that tests produce results and ideally last at least into the 4th day. But if we are going to have bouncy pitches elsewhere let’s get some turning tracks as well - because good cricket requires all sorts of pitches – fast, slow, bouncy, skiddy, rank turners, everything. This variety in playing conditions is one of cricket’s unique pluses and let us not belittle one form over another.