Pitch intrigue with India chasing WTC final berth

What a series we’ve had, eh? Not one of the three Test matches between India and Australia in Nagpur, Delhi and Indore have gone as far as the final session of day three. Spin has dominated, expectedly, but it will surprise many that Australia’s three slow bowlers have each taken five-wickets hauls and, collectively, that Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann have 38 wickets to the 40 that India’s spinners have claimed (out of which 39 are to Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja).

And, after Australia clinched a nine-wicket win in the third match, inside just six-and-half sessions, the Border Gavaskar Trophy has set itself up splendidly for a tasty series finale in Ahmedabad this week.

Despite the ploy backfiring at Indore, India are expected to stick to their template of wanting a sharply spinning track for the series-concluding Test match starting March 9. The captain Rohit Sharma has been vocal about this, and it is believed that head coach Rahul Dravid is equally stubborn on this matter.

Where before the third match Rohit had stated that India would consider a green top in Ahmedabad so that the bowlers and batsmen could prepare for the World Test Championship final from June 7 at The Oval in London, after the Indore defeat such notions should have been squashed. Even though Ahmedabad has seen a surprising amount of rain this week, it is believed that the track there will still aid spinners, though not as much as the one at Indore’s Holkar Stadium did. That pitch, after all, received a ‘poor’ rating from the ICC.

India need to beat Australia to join them in the WTC final, and so they must roar back. Rohit called on the batsmen to stand up in tough situations, but captain and coach must also find the balance between a pitch that aids their formidable spinners without making life difficult for some struggling batsmen of their own, as well as a surface that does not cop further scrutiny from the ICC.

Whether India make personnel changes is more straightforward. After the clamour for his inclusion at Indore, Shubman Gill made 21 and 5, the second-innings dismissal being one that has won him no admirers. Dropping Gill, 23, and replacing him with KL Rahul, who averages 12.66 in the series, still does not make sense. If Mohammed Shami is available, he could slot back in at Mohammed Siraj’s expense.

Axar Patel averages 92.50 with the bat, and his 185 runs are more than any of Australia’s top-order batsmen, but with the ball he has one wicket and an average of 103 and strike-rate of 234. While Axar is unlikely to be dropped – in two Tests matches in Ahmedabad, he has 20 wickets at 9.30 apiece – there is merit to moving him up from No 9 to the middle order, especially with KS Bharat mustering just 57 runs from five innings. Axar was left stranded in both innings of the third Test as India’s tail combusted in a blaze of brainless shots, so promoting him up to buttress a struggling batting order makes sense.

Australia will be led once again by Steve Smith, with Pat Cummins still back in Sydney with his family. They are unlikely to tinker with a winning unit, especially with Kuhnemann’s left-arm spin taking center stage in India being kept to 109 on day one at Indore.

The visitors will hope that an alarming proclivity to collapse does not repeat itself. In the first innings of the Nagpur Test, they lost their last five wickets for 15 runs. In Delhi, eight wickets fell for just 28 runs in Australia’s second innings. In the third match, Australia surrendered six first-innings wickets for 11 runs in 34 deliveries. This team is on course for Australia’s worst ever tail-end batting performance in a series, with a current lower-order batting average of 4.94 in three matches on tour the lowest recorded collective effort in their history.

However, more than what elevens take the field on Thursday in Ahmedabad, it is the nature of the pitch that once again dominates the pre-match chatter.