England Versus India - 1st Test (9 Nov - 13 Nov)

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not obvious why green grass should grow when it is out under the hot sun all day, and the pitch can't be watered once the game starts.

[hopeforthebest]

Moeen MOM is an outside choice.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Good one, give it to Mo.

[Dr Cricket]

Not obvious why green grass should grow when it is out under the hot sun all day, and the pitch can't be watered once the game starts.

heavy due during the night/morning and the cover adds moisture to the pitch overnight, which been explained while the grass was still there on day 5 and looks like it was growing overnight. but yeah very odd situation which makes it more baffling really since if I was a groundsman that sees a deck that retains grass cover every day I would make sure they pitch got no grass, think media was correct that Rajkot wanted 5 days or not a borderline risky pitch for the opening rajkot test, only really possible explanation for the grass.
the ranji games here have no grass and surely the groundsman could produce a solid deck without grass.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Ok, good info.

[Dr Cricket]

Ok, good info.

no problem very odd first test wicket, might be the Trent bridge 2014 but will Vizag be the lords of 2014 where England win on a rank tuner.

[Making_Splinters]

Well, if Vizag turns as much as everyone seems to expect we'll actually learn something useful about the England side. I thought that they came back from the loss in the last Test well and seeing Cook getting some fluency back with Root also scoring a ton is a huge positive for England. Ali played fantastically and we could really be looking at him being a serious option in the top five in a year or so.

Rashid's performance seems to have gone under the radar in the write ups, I thought he bowled really well on a surface that didn't give him much help.

[The Professor]

Twent-twenty hindsight and all that but...could Cook not have declared a bit sooner?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Don't think so. Cook had a duty not to gamble on the hard work of his team over the first 4.5 days and risk losing the farm. In a non dead rubber, with an attack that had just conceded nearly 500 runs and led by a spinner averaging 40 in Tests, England had to first rule out the loss.

[meninblue]

Twent-twenty hindsight and all that but...could Cook not have declared a bit sooner?

I think England should have declared at Lunch as there was little chance India would chase 250 with out of form Gauti and few defensive players. I was glad they batted after lunch and batted the overs which we should have been batting for survival. Their batters did job for us

[Arthur Crabtree]

I read quite a lot going to this Test, enough for it to become established as a sort of truth, that India were better not producing dustbowls, as they would bring in an element of a lottery. India should produce slow tracks on which the greater comparative quality of their spin bowlers could be better expressed. While it is true that India do have much better batters, and far better spinners, this philosophy seems to have been abandoned. Talk is that India made a mistake in not getting England on an unfamiliar, bowler's track. This may well be true, judging by England's performances in BD. But it is a hunch. Maybe the first theory actually will prove to be the true one?

[Durhamfootman]

Don't think so. Cook had a duty not to gamble on the hard work of his team over the first 4.5 days and risk losing the farm. In a non dead rubber, with an attack that had just conceded nearly 500 runs and led by a spinner averaging 40 in Tests, England had to first rule out the loss.

and rule out the possibility of the much expected/predicted 5-0

[Dr Cricket]

I read quite a lot going to this Test, enough for it to become established as a sort of truth, that India were better not producing dustbowls, as they would bring in an element of a lottery. India should produce slow tracks on which the greater comparative quality of their spin bowlers could be better expressed. While it is true that India do have much better batters, and far better spinners, this philosophy seems to have been abandoned. Talk is that India made a mistake in not getting England on an unfamiliar, bowler's track. This may well be true, judging by England's performances in BD. But it is a hunch. Maybe the first theory actually will prove to be the true one?

not really sure where the lottery part comes from since all it really does is speed up the game which still makes the better team still win. the only real reason why the pitches would be better is so the batsman also score some runs, think manjreker mentioned it earlier in the series that the batsman eyes lit up before rajkot since they only saw Indore/Delhi in 4 yrs as good batting decks in india and I suspect with kohli now not much fussed with india pitches and basically happy to take whatever he given since he believes with Ashwin/Jadeja + batting will beat any team irrespective of conditions the pitches are basically whatever the curator, local boards and BCCI want.

But saying that rumers of Rajkot being flat was mention way early, do remember I stayed clear of the whitewash at the time because of it, think the sky boys were also talking about the flat pitch without even seeing the deck yet.
rumers of Vizag started early as well since we heard about Vizag being a rank turner on day 1 of the test.

Be interesting to see how Mohali plays since if they play the normal mohali deck it will be a flat one like Rajkot since mohali doesn't really normally spin much but these days doesn't help the pace bowlers much either though.
Chennai and Mumbai should turn from day 1, with Mumbai being the best wicket for fast run scoring but bowlers got very good help on day 1 though.

[shankycricket]

Surprised some england journalist actually like the pitch now considering this is the most pitch you can ever get for a win the toss and boss the game.

Awful pitch not sure the excitement on the final day should change the view.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/whi ... socm4.html

But does make a valid point who the hell would like cricket if they saw this pitch all the time.

Hope the next 4 test goes back to the new indian pitches and not the shocking crap old indian pitches.

Bowler need to take wickets on the first 3-4 days.

Its good to see a proper pitch where average spinners don't look like the second coming of Warne and Murali. England spinners averaged 24 runs per wicket less than your overhyped dustbowl bullies. Give credit to the opposition for a change. This pitch was just 4 wickets away from a result despite 11 dropped catches and an extremely delayed declaration. Not too bad I'd say. Just shows how far you have been spoiled by seeing opposition batsmen pi** in their pants at the sight of Ashwin and Jadeja on a dustbowl that you seem unable to handle the fact that a team actually showed some fight and pluck and outplayed your boys.

[shankycricket]

Meanwhile, India continues to be an auspicious place for England to debut. Cook in 2006, Swann in 2008, Root in 2012. Looks like England may have unearthed another gem in 2016.