***Official*** South Africa in India 2015

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I'm not the biggest Jadeja fan but if what he does is so easy why doesn't every touring team bring in someone like him?

Because with the exception of someone like Panesar, those types of bowlers get milked under virtually any other conditions and are therefore miles away from international contention

 

[Bahnz]

I'm so glad you brought that clip up.

Look where the ball pitched. Why was ABDV deep in his crease and not looking to get to the pitch of the ball?

Look how his bat came down. Why did he flick it in the air? Where were the soft hands?

The ball reared up ridiculously. ABDV was not coped to deal with it. He got out and could probably be aggreived at the pitch. That does not excuse Amla, Dhawan, Vijay, Elgar, Kohli, Rahane, etc etc of the terrible decision making they showed out there in the middle. You are literally taking the one extreme example and trying to extrapolate that to the whole game.

You got me, I was cherry picking, it's not like Ashwin was spinning the ball past the bat, ball after ball in the first over of the second morning or anything.

 

[Contra]

You got me, I was cherry picking, it's not like Ashwin was spinning the ball past the bat, ball after ball in the first over of the second morning or anything.

Which is a skill itself actually, SA spinners weren't able to put the ball in the same spot consistently enough and gave a lot of freebies. Yes the pitch is there to assist you if you are good enough to capitalize on it, not everyone can do that though which is why there isn't enough credit given to Ashwin and other spinners who are bowling well.

 

[cnerd123]

World's leading offspinner bowling at home on a turning deck.

I dont see anything in those gifs that suggests the pitch was unplayable. Just that the pitch defied norms by spinning from ball 1 instead of being good to bat on or swinging/seaming.

 

[honestbharani]

So wen an offspinner beats de bat first over it s a ridiculous pitch anda new ball bowler does de same, it is excelllent bowlin on a fair pitch? ??

 

[CricAddict]

A dire argument would be to ignore your eyes, the scoreboard and, with all due respect, the opinion of people who are infinitely more knowledgeable than you or me

BTW, why would an Indian website post supposedly anti-Indian opinions when they would get just as many responses by posting fanboy rubbish

India works that way.

 

[cnerd123]

Because with the exception of someone like Panesar, those types of bowlers get milked under virtually any other conditions and are therefore miles away from international contention

Nah see there you go again with the reasoning that because this pitch is unusal, it is therefore no good. So dire. You just want conformity of one style of cricket all across the globe and it bothers you to see a different style in play here. Thats basically what all the waaahs are about.
'Oh no look the ball spins so much; we can't deal with it'

Its a bowler friendly, spin friendly track. Games on this will be low scoring. But no one will get hurt, it is not a lottery, and therefore its a perfectly fine Test wicket.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I'm not directing this at anyone in particular but I don't think we'd be having this much talk about the pitch at all if SA were winning and not India. These pitches donot provide India an unfair advantage and in fact imo, end up working against us most of the time. There really wasn't anywhere near this much talk about the Mumbai 2012 pitch where we lost. England played brilliantly, KP produced a magical innings and they won comfortably on a pitch which was just as much a minefield as this one, if not more. But people have torn this pitch a new one because it's India who's dominating. I find that extremely unfair and inconsistent.

 

[cnerd123]

So wen an offspinner beats de bat first over it s a ridiculous pitch anda new ball bowler does de same, it is excelllent bowlin on a fair pitch? ??

Exactly

Everyone's biases on show here. Jimmy Anderson beats the bat 6 times in the first over with the swinging ball and everyone licks their lips and jizzes in excitement. Ashwin does it with offbreaks and everyone begins waahing. No one cares when high quality spinners are forced to play the holding role, but when Morne Morkel has to do it the toys go flying out of the pram.

So dire

 

[OverratedSanity]

You got me, I was cherry picking, it's not like Ashwin was spinning the ball past the bat, ball after ball in the first over of the second morning or anything.

This was frankly beautiful to watch.

 

[cnerd123]

I'm not directing this at anyone in particular but I don't think we'd be having this much talk about the pitch at all if SA were winning and not India. These pitches donot provide India an unfair advantage and in fact imo, end up working against us most of the time. There really wasn't anywhere near this much talk about the Mumbai 2012 pitch where we lost. England played brilliantly, KP produced a magical innings and they won comfortably on a pitch which was just as much a minefield as this one, if not more. But people have torn this pitch a new one because it's India who's dominating. I find that extremely unfair and inconsistent.

Yea this too. Such strong anti-Jadeja, anti-India-making-home-tracks-to-suit-them waaahing here. When they were getting thrashed overseas on bouncing and swinging decks all these same posters were enjoying it gleefully. When England won here no one complains.

Urgh.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

I wanna see a pitch that's a bunsen on day 1 and then green on day 5.

 

[social]

Exactly

Everyone's biases on show here. Jimmy Anderson beats the bat 6 times in the first over with the swinging ball and everyone licks their lips and jizzes in excitement. Ashwin does it with offbreaks and everyone begins waahing. No one cares when high quality spinners are forced to play the holding role, but when Morne Morkel has to do it the toys go flying out of the pram.

So dire

Oh, I dunno

Maybe it's because pitches favouring seam first up generally flatten out and become better for batting throughout the match whilst pitches favouring spin first up only get worse

A novel thought that's only supported by 140 years of evidence

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Actually, new idea - one member of each team acts as a groundsman and gets an hour after each day's play to prepare the pitch how they want.

 

[Agent TBY]

I wanna see a pitch that's a bunsen on day 1 and then green on day 5.

This one is, and that's what makes it so revolutionary.

Too bad the batsmen couldn't last long enough for the full scale of the magic being worked here to come to light.

See also: Mumbai '04.

 

[Daemon]

Oh, I dunno

Maybe it's because pitches favouring seam first up generally flatten out and become better for batting throughout the match whilst pitches favouring spin first up only get worse

A novel thought that's only supported by 140 years of evidence

Do you consider batting on a 'typical' day 5 pitch unfair and poor cricket?

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Seriously, what percentage of test matches have this mythical perfect pitch? Gotta be less than 10%.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Daemon hit the nail on the head imo
There are aspects of the pitch I haven't enjoyed, like it making part timers way more effective than they should, but overall most of the other complaints have been silly.

 

[cnerd123]

Oh, I dunno

Maybe it's because pitches favouring seam first up generally flatten out and become better for batting throughout the match whilst pitches favouring spin first up only get worse

A novel thought that's only supported by 140 years of evidence

Worse for batting != poor

This pitch hasn't even had the chance to deteriorate to the point where its dangerous to bat and it actually becomes a lottery. When a pitch reaches that stage, then by all means call it poor.

But to assume based on the evidence of two days that pitch would deteriorate to that extent is just unfair. You're callig a pitch poor based on hypothetical cricket to be played on it, and not the cricket that was actually played on it.

For all we know this pitch would be the exact same by day 5. Or maybe it would have flattened out. Its meaningless to label it as 'poor when, based on the evidence on hand, its just been a difficult spinning wicket. Nothing more nothing less.

 

[social]

Do you consider batting on a 'typical' day 5 pitch unfair and poor cricket?

News flash: pitches deteriorate