The former India captain and current head coach Rahul Dravid has defended the use of spin friendly wickets in the ongoing Test series against Australia, saying that results have a premium on them and it is important for home teams to take advantage of favourable conditions while playing in their backyard.
More than the cricket, the pitches have been in focus during this India-Australia Test series in which the home team are currently leading 2-1, having won the first two matches at Nagpur and New Delhi while Australia bounced back to win the third Test at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.
The spinners have ruled the proceedings right from the first Test at Nagpur as none of the matches lasted beyond three days, with the match in Indore going just a little above two days which also brought into question the kind of pitches that India has prepared particularly for this series.
But Indian head coach Rahul Dravid believes that it is important to her result oriented pitches specially while playing at home, as drawn matches can hurt big time especially when teams are going to make it to the final of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC).
“It could be one of the reasons, because yes, there is a huge premium on results,”
Dravid was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
“You draw a game like Kanpur against New Zealand, where you take nine wickets in the second innings, you draw that game and that sets you back, in a home game. Every team is getting results at home or are putting in really good performances at home, so there is a premium on results. You get four points for a draw and you get 12 for a win, so there is a premium on that, there’s no question about it.”
Rahul Dravid asked the cricket fraternity to be a little more realistic and look not just at the pitches in India which are spin-friendly but also elsewhere, with fast bowlers usually dominating in countries like England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
“It’s really about being realistic about what is a good performance on some of the challenging wickets we are playing on, not only here,”
he said.
“If you look at the last three-four years, all over the world I think wickets have got a lot more challenging, not only here. So you have to be realistic about what the benchmarks are now, what the standards are.
“Just understanding that in these kinds of games, just one good performance can change the game. We saw that with Rohit [Sharma]’s performance [his century in the first Test in Nagpur], we’ve seen that many times over here. It’s just being realistic in our assessment of our batsmen, their averages and their numbers, and don’t really look so much into it.
The fourth and final Test between India and Australia will start on March 9 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, with the hosts desperately looking for another win which would seal their spot in the ICC WTC final. Australia had already qualified for the summit clash after their win in the third Test in Indore.