AHMEDABAD: In film, there's something called the Bechdel test. Broadly, it is a measure of representation of women. If you pass it, then its women have been well represented. In terms of Indian cricket, there ought to be a test on the pitch. You go an entire press conference without mentioning it, you pass it. Perhaps, one can call it the Indore test after what happened in the third game where the hosts were shot out on an undercooked wicket.
There was no danger of the Indore test being passed on Tuesday. A few minutes into coach Rahul Dravid's press conference, he was also expressing his frustration on there being too much talk apropos pitches, echoing captain Rohit Sharma's sentiments from the last match. "It (the strip to be used for the fourth Test) looks okay to me and I think whatever the wicket is, honestly, it doesn't matter. There's just a lot of talk about pitches all the time. It's the same for both teams. It is more challenging for the bowler at times. It is more challenging for batsmen at times. Wickets are like that. Whatever it is, we have to learn to play on them, we have to learn to adjust."
At least some of the frustration from Dravid, Sharma and the rest of the team management is because several of the lead Indian batters are still adjusting and adapting to what has felt like the new normal for the last few years. Ever since the World Test Championship was put in place by the International Cricket Council (ICC), some teams have looked to double down at home. The net effect at least has been challenging pitches, with the dice almost always loaded against the batters. That's the case because you can score all the runs in the world but you can only win a Test by picking up 20 wickets. Dravid alluded to this point.
"Sometimes, obviously with WTC points at stake, you are looking to play on, sometimes, a wicket that produces or gets results," he explained. "It can happen at times and not only in India... even across the world, you are seeing that at times it's difficult to get that balance perfectly right for everyone. And that can happen, not only here but it's happened in other places as well." That was perhaps a tacit acknowledgement from the coach that the pitch at Indore went a little too extreme for India's liking.
That's the primary reason behind the team management retaining faith in a top-order that has been prone to the odd collapse now and then, both in India and abroad. Averages of all the lead batters have dipped, the centuries have dried up and 100-run partnerships have become an endangered species. Normally, all of them would be on the chopping block. Not now. Not when Dravid suggested that a score of 70 is equal to somebody scoring a double ton on a normal surface.
"It's really being realistic about what is a good performance on some of the challenging wickets we are playing on, not only here," he said. "If you look at the last three-four years, all over the world I think the wicket has got a lot more challenging." Keeping that in mind, it's about coming up with new yardsticks to rate the players. "You have to be realistic about what the benchmarks are now, what the standards are? Just understanding that in these kinds of games, just one good performance can change the game."
It has also meant the think tank has gone away from the tried and tested method — at least from the outside — of looking at a player's Test career through numbers (average, centuries and so on). "It's being realistic in our assessment of our batters, their averages and numbers and don't really look too much into it. It might not necessarily be about scoring big double hundreds but you know there might be scores 50-70... really, really good scores in some conditions."
Speaking about the conditions, the pitch didn't look as bone dry as it looked in Indore. There was also a sprinkling of grass covering but it could be shaved off on Wednesday. With the harsh sun baking the pitch, expect the ball to turn on any wicket, it's just a question of when it will start turning. On Wednesday, if Sharma comes for the press conference, he will again be asked for his assessment of the pitch. The cycle will repeat itself again.