KOLKATA: Even before the presentation ceremony was over, the ground staff at the Eden Gardens, as if to carry out a meta joke, watered the square. With natural light dying, the 22 yards was properly bathed, a dark sheen shimmering in the distance. It was the first time the strip had been hydrated since last Saturday, over a week ago.
You can draw a straight line between the Indian team’s decision to not water the pitch to losing a fourth Test in eight home games since Gautam Gambhir was appointed to the post last year (decisions like not watering the strip are usually made by the leadership group, something that happened in Kolkata as well). “This (the pitch) is what we wanted,” Gambhir after the match. “This is what we got.”
With the ball misbehaving from as early as the first over on Day 1, both teams knew they were in for a dogfight. India have flipped-flopped on the kind of pitches they want but it had seemed like they were going away from this model.
However, Sunday was a sharp reminder of how spectacularly it can backfire. So, why did the Indian team go back to a designer surface for the visit of South Africa after playing on two typical sub-continental decks against West Indies? Was it because of the stakes of WTC points? Was it because of their somewhat inexperienced batting line-up? Was it to take the toss out of the equation even if they have lost on these tracks after losing the toss? Gambhir defended the pitch by saying the batters should be able to absorb pressure.
He called it more mental than skill. But after a point, survival is nigh on impossible. And that is no way for the game to be played. With less than one week to regroup — the next Test starts in Guwahati on Saturday — how will the team management dig themselves out of a hole of their own choosing?