The defeats in Pune and Indore share many characteristics. Australia triumphed both times under Steven Smith’s leadership, and on both occasions their spinners defeated India’s on grounds that turned square. Even a team as skilled in its own environment as India has been over the past ten years cannot win on a home field with certainty.
A good away team can have an easy path to win on fields that favour bowlers in extreme ways, whether through seam movement, turn, or uneven bounce. This is something that India is aware of. They are aware that changing directions can make them more susceptible to outcomes like Pune or Indore.
Even the Test match last week in Delhi would have gone India’s way if it weren’t for their lower order’s first-innings comeback and Australia’s second-innings collapse. These facts are all known to India. They probably won’t stop requesting pitches that are successful from the start from curators, though.
Source: Fox Cricket
They feel that turning wickets provide them their best chance to win Test matches because they play to their strengthsu2014the very strengths that helped them win the Delhi Test from a precarious positionu2014their spin attack and the allrounders in their lower order.
Honestly speaking, these are the kind of pitches we want to play on, India skipper Rohit Sharma said after Australia closed up a nine-wicket win in Indore. This is our forte, therefore when playing at home, you always play to your forte, not care about what people outside are talking about.
The management of India’s team would therefore view Indore as a setback. The surfaces in Nagpur and Delhi weren’t quite as extreme, so they might even think the pitch went too far in terms of the amount of variable turn, pace, and bounce on offer.
However, they will be aware that pitch preparation isn’t an exact science and will acknowledge that the curators had little time to prepare this track because Dharamsala was originally supposed to host the Test match.
Although the outcome was unfavourable and their batsmen had to play through another challenging match, India will not feel the need to reevaluate their conviction that they play their best cricket on turning tracks.
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