There is a very old idiom – ‘to hit an ax in the foot’. That means causing harm to oneself. Generally it is used only when someone unknowingly causes harm to himself. Then when someone, despite knowing everything, takes such a decision, which is certain to cause loss, then it is called ‘stepping on the axe’. The current situation is somewhat similar to that of the Indian cricket team, which first hit the ax on its feet and is now hitting the ax on its feet. Let’s stop the idioms here and talk directly about the issue. The Indian team is feeling embarrassed after losing the Test series to New Zealand. Now the last Test to be held in Mumbai is a battle of honor for him, but for this too, Team India has taken a decision which will backfire on him.
Team India requested for special pitch
The thing is that Team India seems to be repeating the same mistake of the Pune Test. A report has claimed that the Indian team management has also demanded a turning pitch for the Test match starting from November 1 at Wankhede Stadium. It has been reported in the English newspaper The Indian Express that the Indian team management has asked the Mumbai Cricket Association, the organizer of the Wankhede ground, to prepare a ‘rank turner’ pitch. ‘Rank Turner’ is a pitch which starts helping the spinners not only on the first day, but from the first hour and sometimes even from the first over itself.
In this report, quoting a source, it has been said that in the match starting from November 1, the Wankhede pitch will start turning from the first hour itself because Team India has requested for it. The reason behind this is believed to be the old, tested and successful formula of Team India, on the basis of which Team India has defeated many teams in the past also. Team India has spinners like Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav who can make the batsmen dance to their tune on such a pitch. Leaving aside Sundar’s performance in the Pune Test, India’s veteran spinners could not completely dominate in this series, due to which Team India had to struggle.
After Pune, stubbornness should not prevail in Mumbai also
However, the question is why does Team India want to follow this path? The Indian team may have been successful in trapping the New Zealand batsmen in the trap of spin, but what will happen to its batsmen themselves, who were seen succumbing even in front of less effective spinners like Mitchell Santner in Pune. A spin friendly pitch was made in Pune which was not turning from the first hour but the effect of the spinners was visible from the first day and there Mitchell Santner took 7 wickets in the first innings and 6 wickets in the second innings.
Indian batsmen like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan failed to face the Kiwi spinners and New Zealand won the match by 113 runs. Even after this, if Team India adopts the same path then it will just have to pray that captain Rohit Sharma wins the toss so that Team India bats first and New Zealand team has to run chase in the fourth innings so that the Indian spinners can impact the match. If this does not happen then the danger of a clean sweep will loom.
