‘Too shy’ India didn't ask for a rank turner against South Africa in embarrassing homecoming for Eden Gardens

That was made possible by two evenly matched sides going toe-to-toe on excellent batting surfaces (in at least three games); the weather didn’t play a major part except at the Oval. Qualitatively, they may not have been the five best games in the history of Test cricket, but for sheer drama and competitiveness and the unending ebbs and flows, they will collectively be hard to match.

Contrast that with the last two Tests in which India and South Africa have done battle. In January 2024, at the beautiful Newlands in Cape Town, India found themselves on the right side of a game of Russian Roulette. On a diabolically spiteful, grass-laden surface that damaged limbs and egos in equal measure, with the ball climbing alarmingly or scooting through from the same spot and seaming around prodigiously, India tamed the South African beast in its own den, after which then-captain Rohit Sharma sounded out a scarcely veiled warning.

“I honestly don’t mind playing on pitches like this,” remarked Rohit after India won by seven wickets to square the two-Test series 1-1, “as long as everyone keeps their mouth shut when they come to India. Yes, it is dangerous, it is challenging. When they come to India, it’s challenging as well. You talk about Test cricket being the ultimate prize and pinnacle, you should stand by it. In India, on day one when the pitch (ball) starts turning, they keep talking about the puff of dust, the cracks. It’s important to stay neutral (uniform).”

The aforementioned Newlands outing lasted a total of 107 overs during which 33 wickets were consumed by pacers from both sides; not one delivery was sent down by spinners and the game ended an hour into the second session of Day 2, a terrible advertisement for the format.

Taken aback by the nature of the track, South African coach Shukri Conrad had said, “It’s a sad state when you need more luck than skill. All the ethics and values of Test cricket go out the window.”

Twenty-two months later, we are confronted with another ‘nearly-two-day’ Test between the sides. Swap Newlands for Eden Gardens, Cape Town for Kolkata, the grassy knoll for a dry, crack-filled surface. Otherwise, the script has remained pretty much the same.

Morne Morkel, Conrad’s fellow South African who is now India’s bowling coach, wasn’t as scathing in his assessment of the Eden deck, though he did concede on Saturday evening that the Indians didn’t expect the pitch to ‘deteriorate so quickly’. Like at Newlands, batting has been tense and perilous, survival dependent to a huge extent on good fortune. Twenty-six wickets in two days, courtesy unpredictable bounce, and only nine individual scores in excess of 20 but none more than KL Rahul’s 39, paint a grim but true picture of infrastructural failing, not technical shortcomings. Saturday’s day-two track played more like a day-four surface, batters infested by the insecurity that comes with the knowledge that a ball with their name on it wasn’t far away.

Like the unacceptable Newlands strip, this Eden track is so loaded in favour of bowlers that the possibility of a reasonably even contest between ball and bat is non-existent. These two instances can’t be used as proof of declining batting skills; no matter how watertight one’s technique might be or how mentally strong one might pride themselves on being, it’s been a case of when rather than whether for batters.

Staggeringly, the South African leadership group didn’t ask for the horrible Newlands surface, just as the Indian team management didn’t outline its preference to the Cricket Association of Bengal. Bitten twice last year by New Zealand, they are way too shy to play on square turners that eliminate the gulf in class between their spinners and the visiting ones. India are happy to play on ‘true’ pitches, like they did for the most part when Anil Kumble (for a year) and Rahul Dravid were the head coaches, trusting the class of their batters and the quality of their bowlers to get the job done.

Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja amassed upwards of 500 runs in England, both had a century apiece last month against West Indies. They haven’t, like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant and Aiden Markram and Wiaan Mulder (who recently slammed an unbeaten 367), become bad batters over the last two days. Like the paying spectator who is certain to be shortchanged by an early finish, they are part of a batting collective that has been dealt the unkindest cut by those tasked with the preparation of the playing surface, not been let down by loose technique and dwindling batting standards. Simple as that. Suffice to say that it has been an embarrassing homecoming for Eden, hosting a Test for the first time in six years.

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