Mumbai: On Saturday, Guwahati, among the earliest sunrise destinations in the country, will become India’s 28th home Test venue. Being early winter, the sun disappears quickly too in eastern India. To avoid loss of overs, there will be an early start and a short tea break will precede a longer lunch interval. But these are not the only adjustments India has to make as they look to recover from the Kolkata Test defeat against South Africa.
An untested Test venue will also leave the hosts to deal with plenty of other imponderables: state of the outfield, unfamiliar ground conditions and, above all, the playing surface. Over the past 10 years, there has been a number of new venues added to India’s Test cricket destinations: Dharamshala, Pune, Ranchi, Indore, Rajkot and Visakhapatnam.
“The only point is that you are playing within that Indian map and it is referred to as home, but it is not home,” R Ashwin said on his YouTube channel. The recently retired off-spinner reiterated Virat Kohli’s point to have standard Test venues, similar to Australia, England and South Africa, in order to maximise home advantage.
While Ashwin and Kohli’s argument has sound cricketing reasoning, allotment of venues in India is done factoring in many other considerations. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is made up of 38 state units. Thanks to healthy infrastructural subsidies, most units have or are in the process of having a modern stadium.
“If we get a regular dose of international cricket, it helps us to keep the ground in good condition and our people employed get work,” said Kamlesh Pisal, secretary Maharashtra Cricket Association. Pune has hosted three Test matches since the BCCI began branching out Tests to more venues.
Pisal also disputed the claim that spectators in Tier 2 cities do not come for Test cricket. “We have got crowds for Test cricket in Pune. In fact, we earn more money over five days because we keep our ticket rates dynamic,” he said.
Numerical strength of fans aside, it’s a given that crowds unfamiliar with the rhythms of Test cricket will take time to create the atmosphere of traditional venues, many of whom have been staging Tests for over 50 years. The counter to that is, there is equal merit in taking long format cricket to smaller pockets where swathes of fans cannot wait to experience big-ticket cricket.
“Just look at the response recent India A-South Africa A matches got in Rajkot. 30,000 people came in on a Sunday and 15,000 on weekdays,” said Jaydev Shah, BCCI Apex Council member and a former first-class player. “Fans in Rajkot don’t get to watch IPL annually. White-ball internationals come once every few years. Give them Test cricket with the big stars and we have seen that they respond.”
Shah said that cricket in India cannot be equated with South Africa where there are only a handful of state bodies and Australia where cricket is a seasonal sport.
Designer pitches
On losing the home edge, there is a feeling that team managements are opting for tailored pitches over traditional turners since the advent of the World Test Championship and the behaviour of pitches at the regular venues is also changing rapidly.
“We are mostly playing on turning tracks. So, no matter where you play in India, you do get the wickets you want,” said Jharkhand Cricket Association’s secretary Saurabh Tiwary, another player-turned administrator.
There is data that backs the claim that new venues are not the reason behind India’s losses in the WTC (2019 onwards) era. India have lost four of the last six home Tests. A comparative look of India’s results at home in the current decade (2016-25) to the previous one (2006-2015) shows the win percentage going up (71 from 59%) and draws going down.
Interestingly, few traditional Test venues have truly turned into fortresses, except for the IS Bindra stadium in Mohali: 83% win ratio in 2006-15 and 100 % in 2016-25. Ironically, this stadium could be phased out with the New Chandigarh stadium gaining prominence. The stadium where India has lost most matches (3) in the past 20 years is one of the older stadiums – the Wankhede in Mumbai, largely owing to the home team batters’ growing inability to counter spin on a red-soil pitch with true bounce.
What a traditional venue like Wankhede can provide though is a truly festive atmosphere for Test cricket with fully engaged fan groups thus lifting the quality of the broadcast and the spirit of the players.
Ashwin’s appeal for India to keep Test cricket the preserve of a select few venues may not find favour in a members’ body like the BCCI, but his point about choosing centres with greater care and pitching it right against each opponent deserves more attention.
