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India vs New Zealand: Why players changing rankings actually reduce India’s home advantage

Posted on by L. Dreeye
India vs New Zealand: Why players changing rankings actually reduce India’s home advantage

Indian players hate it when people talk about pitches at home. Part of this is due to the derisive clichés used to describe turning paths: trash cans, “rank” turners, wrestling pits. They don’t want a three-day test on the turning course to be considered inferior to a three-day finish on the seaming green.

However, having had their cake, Indian cricketers also want it, suggesting that they have no say in the preparation of pitches, although they almost micromanage the process, often to the irritation of ground staff. Even during the 2023 ICC ODI World Cup in India, of the five grounds that produced ‘middle’ pitches, three did so only for India’s matches and one did so just before India’s appearance. Now the semantics of what is “average” and “good” are debatable, but there were enough indications that India wanted to play specific opponents on certain types of pitches that their desires were granted even in the ICC tournament.

You might argue that there is nothing wrong with this – gaining a competitive advantage in professional sports. Grounders don’t exist to create perfect pitches, but to create coverages that help the home team win. With the exception of Australia, where there is evidence that the head gardener may scold an interfering captain, this happens almost everywhere. The nature of England’s pitches can range from turners to seamers, depending on Australia’s strengths in this Ashes cycle. South Africa can stymie its farmers by insisting on extreme home advantage, sometimes at its own peril. Recently in Pakistan, national selectors have virtually taken over the proposal preparation process.

In India, you hope the team’s constant demand for spin-friendly surfaces is a cold, professional choice based on analytics rather than an emotional reaction to the whitewash in England and Australia after which players started demanding extreme spinners. By the way, current coach Gautam Gambhir was the first to publicly make such a demand as a player.

It could be argued that the pitches on which India played New Zealand in Pune and Mumbai actually reduced their home advantage. India have lost seven Tests at home in the last 12 years, and four of those defeats have come on extremely spinner-friendly surfaces. Of the other three defeats, one was due to extreme weather conditions leading to excessive first-morning slump in Bangalore, while the other required an incredibly lucky innings from Ollie Pope in Hyderabad.

It was Joe Root’s third loss to bat first full in Chennai in 2021, which seemed to give India a scare. They have since doubled down on their excessive queuing requirements from day one. This result seemed to confirm M.S.’s theory. Dhoni on how the shot plays a less important role on pitches that get big from day one. The pressure of achieving maximum World Test Championship points in home tests also played a role.

However, there is no evidence that tossing becomes less important for players who turn rows. Hawk-Eye data in Kartikeya Date’s article shows that the Mumbai pitch took three hours before the Indian spinners got their big chance. Those three hours are worth 100 runs in relatively easy conditions. For a long time, India had batters who could overcome this handicap if they lost the toss; now they don’t seem to do so.

Draws were not a problem for India on “normal” pitches either. Of the seven drawn Tests in the country since 2013, three have been affected by weather, two have been played on pitches that are uncharacteristically slow even for India, one surface failed to collapse due to overnight dew at Rajkot in November, and the last draw was against New Zealand. hung on one gate.

By asking for and receiving pitches that change from day one and become increasingly difficult to bat on, India are closing the gap between their excellent spinners and the visitors who now need to maintain their skill and control for much shorter periods of time.

The Spinners averaged just under 24 runs in India’s 3-0 defeat to New Zealand. ESPNcricinfo’s Shiva Jayaraman used this average as a marker to differentiate normal pitching from excessive swinging in India. He found that in Tests since 2017, in which the spinners had a combined average score of less than 24, the Indian spinners averaged 16.37 while the visiting spinners averaged 22.91.

However, the real difference in the quality of spinners becomes apparent when they are made to work harder for their wickets. In Tests conducted since 2017, where the spinners’ aggregate average was over 24, Indian spinners averaged 26.22 while visiting spinners averaged a whopping 57.04 per wicket. These deliveries also tend to lead to reverse swing, which is something India’s fast bowlers are really good at.

Since 2020, six visiting spinners have taken their first five in Test cricket in India: Joe Root, Mitchell Santner, Todd Murphy, Tom Hartley, Matt Kuhnemann and Shoaib Bashir. It seems counter-intuitive to close the gap between their skills and what R Ashwin does with the ball in the air or Ravindra Jadeja’s relentless accuracy over long periods. For example, you might understand a request for an extreme turner at the end of a long season, but not when the bowlers are fresh.

The drop in batting average of Indian against-spin batters is also huge when playing at home becomes a lottery. For example, since 2017, Virat Kohli has averaged 90.25 against spin on pitches where spinners average over 24 per wicket, but this drops to 20.13 on pitches where spinners average less than 24 per wicket. Considering that the batters, as is usually the case with Indian captains, make decisions about the nature of the pitches, it is quite noble that they strive for victories without worrying about personal records. But if they distance themselves a little, they will see that playing on the grater may also be detrimental to the team’s results.

Under the leadership of Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma, India made a conscious decision to play with what they were given in Test cricket and they continued to do so despite losing the first Test against England in early 2024. They won the series 4–1. However, India’s reaction to Bangalore’s defeat to New Zealand led by Gambhir and Rohit was harsh for some reason.

Had India won the toss in Pune and Mumbai, they would have likely won the last two Tests. But right now they don’t have the batting quality to overcome the disadvantage of losing the toss, which gives the opposition about three hours of decent batting conditions before the ball starts doing whatever it wants, and that’s why Dravid and Rohit wanted to play on. normal surfaces.

As a result, since 2017, India have won 16 Tests, lost three and drawn five on pitches where spinners average over 24 per wicket, and won ten and lost four on extreme pitches. The numbers become 6-2-3 and 6-3 when they lose the toss. Somewhere along the line, the line between bravery and gambling seems to have become blurred in recent years.

Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo.