RANCHI: At this point, it has become a routine. The moment Indian contingent arrives at the venue — two days out, one day out or in the morning — head coach Rahul Dravid will be the first to walk out to the middle and take a hard look at the pitch for the match. Even during innings breaks or session intervals during the match it is hard to miss Dravid examining the surface and see if and whether it had changed from the last time he had a look.
On a breezy Wednesday afternoon in Ranchi, it was no different. Dravid was the first among the senior coaching staff to come to the middle of the Jharkhand State Cricket Association Stadium and take a look at the surface for the fourth Test between India and England to be played from Friday. A long discussion followed between him and the curators before the former India captain headed towards the batting nets.
From the outset, the pitch seemed to have a few cracks two days out, and was kept under wraps for the second half of the day after watering in the morning. England vice-captain Ollie Pope called it “interesting”. “There’s a lot of cracks, it’s very platey, and they’ve just wetted it as well, which generally dries it up. If you wet it and leave it in the sun, we have found it’s crusted that top layer. It doesn’t necessarily look like a belting wicket at the moment. It kind of looks like one half is good and then there are a lot of platey cracks. That’s how we see it at the minute. I think we will see what happens tomorrow after the Indian team has looked at the wicket, then make a decision from there,” Pope told the reporters on Wednesday.
While the match is still two days out and it will be interesting to see how the pitch looks on Friday morning, one thing seemed clear immediately after the Rajkot Test. The surface in Ranchi was expected to assist spinners, even more so with India releasing Jasprit Bumrah as part of workload management. While it seems like they are sticking to the pre-series plan, having bowled just over 80 overs (23, 33.1, 24.4) across three Tests in 25 days (which also included a nine-day break between Vizag and Rajkot) it came as a surprise that Bumrah was rested for Ranchi. Especially with the series scoreline reading 2-1. Similarly, KL Rahul, who the BCCI said was 90 per cent fit before Rajkot and captain Rohit Sharma said “should be okay”, getting declared unfit for Ranchi.
With no Bumrah in the line-up, the surface is expected to have a significant role in the combination India field. Although R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav are sure starters, it will be interesting to see if Mukesh Kumar comes back or India go with four spinners (either Axar Patel or Washington Sundar). It all will come down to how the pitch looks over the next 24 hours.
England, however, remain unfazed by scoreline and the pitch. Pope even said that a rank turner would help the visiting team. “If it does spin from ball one I guess it’s an even playing field, When the wicket does start flat and conditions deteriorate we won the first Test after winning the toss and they’ve won the last two after batting first. Look, it doesn’t define the result, but it does give you an advantage if you win the toss and bat on the slightly flatter wickets. But if that does a fair bit like we expect it to having looked at it today it definitely brings us into the game. We have got some young spinners but I think they’ve bowled well on some pretty good surfaces as well so it definitely brings some wicket-taking opportunities into the game,” Pope said.
