New Delhi: Sometimes a knife gets sharpened in the dullest of battles. The second Test at Kotla will perhaps be described by many as one such battle — the pitch wasn’t doing much, the West Indies batters were playing to their own rhythm with a win out of sight and the Indian bowlers were struggling to find the right length. Yes, it was all happening but it was happening at a slow, sleepy pace.
But just as friction sharpens a knife, these struggles build character, resilience, and skill. For some of the younger members of the India team, it was an opportunity to do just that. And among those youngsters would be skipper Shubman Gill.
At close of play on Day 4, India were just 58 runs away from sealing a 2-0 series win. John Campbell (115), Shai Hope (103) and Justin Greaves (50*) batted with great determination but West Indies were so far behind in the game that even that wasn’t enough.
The tour of England and its five-day Tests challenged everyone in both teams. In this series, Ahmedabad was over in quick time. But Delhi — with its low on bounce and flat track — needed a different approach.
Watching Gill go about captaining the side made one wonder whether Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma would have tried something a bit more out of the box.
Ganguly, for one, might have tried to stir things up by positioning himself at short leg. Dhoni, as we saw him do a few times, might have resorted to a 7-2 field. Kohli’s infectious energy and aggression might have pushed the team into doing more. While Rohit’s ‘garden mein nahi ghoom neka’ attitude would have kept everyone on their toes.
Every captain has his own way and, perhaps, in time, Gill will find his style too. But Day 4 was an ideal opportunity to try things. The result was never in doubt and that freed him up to experiment in terms of field placements or tactics.
The bowlers did their thing, as off-spinner Washington Sundar later told the media, but it was hard work.
“I’d say we did quite a few different things depending on the batsmen,” said Washington. “For some of the batsmen we tried to bowl a little wider and hit the rough and for some players we tried to be really straight as much as possible and bring the stumps into play. I mean, it’s more to do with what kind of a batsman he is, and eventually you know, try and bowl to his not-so-strengths and try and make him play as many balls over there and eventually pick wickets over there.
“I think we were really patient throughout and we bowled a lot of good deliveries throughout the game, so I’d say it was a great effort from all the bowlers.”
But other than having silly mid-on at times, there could have been more from Gill. When he was asked where he was as an instinctive captain ahead of the second Test, he had replied that he always wants to do what is right for the team.
The willingness to experiment is the mindset of trying new things and learning from the outcomes, regardless of success or failure. At this stage of his career, this is the kind of thing that will mould Gill into an even better captain.
The other point of note during the day was that India asked for a slow turner and they got it. Now, this is a typical Kotla wicket in every sense of the word, so the curator didn’t need to do much. While it was fine against West Indies, will they prefer similar wickets against world Test champions South Africa, who will come visiting in November for a two-Test series.
The workload wasn’t that much of a problem for India but low bounce and the slow turn meant the hosts didn’t have anything to work with. The batters could comfortably go on the back foot and play. Also, worth noting is what such a wicket does for the paying public? Is this what they’d want to turn up for again?
So against SA, a higher quality opposition, will India go for turners again? The venues for that series will be Kolkata and Guwahati and this Test would have certainly given the team some food for thought.
