India vs South Africa: A fan's plea to Kohli and Shastri for Kotla pitch not to resemble the Thar desert

Dear Virat Kohli, Ravi Shastri and the BCCI, Now that you have won the series, this is a plea for a pitch at the Ferozshah Kotla that does not resemble the Thar desert. Don’t get me wrong. I am glad India have won the series and I also completely agree with Kohli when he says that results matter, that we don’t want pitches where both teams make 500 each and call it a day. I am also in favour of using the home advantage but tilting the balance too far in favor of the ball is equally problematic. It isn’t just averages you give up, you sacrifice the quality of the game too. [caption id=“attachment_2416864” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Virat Kohli. AP[/caption] And the quality of the cricket on display so far in this series has been poor. From both sides. Yes, the spinners have taken bundles of wickets but on these pitches, they should have been tarred and feathered had they not. There was no need to work to get wickets, to create a slow-burning plan to lure batsmen to their doom. All they had to do, in the words of Ravindra Jadeja, was keep it simple. At least in the first Test in Mohali there were a couple of moments that stood out because of their excellence – Amit Mishra bowling AB de Villiers in the first innings and Varun Aaron bursting through Hashim Amla’s defenses in the second. But given the pace at which wickets fell in Nagpur – one every 6.1 overs on average - they all blurred together and the batting provided no highlights either. How could it when the highest score in the match was 40? Harsha Bhogle summed it up perfectly in the Indian Express when he wrote about the sense of emptiness he has felt while watching this series. “The joy of winning emerges out of a challenge. As a bowler, when you have outwitted a worthy opponent, as a batsman when you have countered the conditions to score runs. But these pitches, like in the fable of the fox and the crane, are like inviting a guest to a meal he can’t partake of. The win is set up for you, there is no joy of overcoming.” You see, we don’t watch just to see India win. We hope to witness something extraordinary, to see talent and determination triumph over adversity, to glimpse greatness. That’s why, Kohli, even though India lost your first Test as captain in Adelaide, that game was more more inspiring than either of India’s wins in this series. Your century in the fourth innings allowed us to dream and even though India came up 48 runs short, you had planted a marker in the ground. You let us know India would not go gently into that good night. To be sure, Shastri has a point when he says batsmen have lost the art of grinding thanks to limited-overs cricket. It is no coincidence that India’s leading run-scorers in this series – Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara – did not play the T20Is or the ODIs. But De Villiers once made 33 from 220 deliveries to save a Test and Faf du Plessis averages roughly 98 balls an innings. To put that in perspective, Sachin Tendulkar averaged 89 balls an innings (hat-tip to Mohandas Menon for those stats). To say De Villiers and Du Plessis don’t know how to knuckle down for the long haul is stretching credibility a touch too far. Contrast what happened in Nagpur last week with what happened in Nagpur in 2010, the last times these teams played a Test match there. South Africa batted first and Amla accumulated his way to 253 not out as South Africa posted 558 for 6 declared. “It needed all the discipline from Amla because the pitch offered Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra ample assistance,” was how ESPNcricinfo described the innings. Amla applied plenty of discipline in the second innings last week too but he was never going to get to 100, let alone 200. As it is, his 39 was the second-highest score of the game. In 2010, Virender Sehwag responded with a typically brisk 109 but Dale Steyn produced a fast bowling masterclass that demolished the rest of India’s batting. He finished with figures of 7 for 51, still his best figures in an innings. Forced to follow-on, Tendulkar ground out a century but couldn’t prevent India from losing as left-arm spinner Paul Harris bowled cunningly and chipped in with three wickets, including that of Tendulkar. That match had everything you could want in a Test– a result (albeit not one India wanted), superb batting from both sides and excellent bowling from fast and slow bowlers alike. It is the kind of cricket that inspires those who watch it. Is it really asking too much to give both teams a chance to do the same in Delhi? Yours respectfully, A life-long cricket fan.