Team India might be the best team at knowing how to waste its firepower and talent. For a country that went unbeaten at home for 12 straight years, they have now lost 4 Tests out of their last six at home. This Indian team under Gautam Gambhir’s regime seems to be adamant about playing on treacherous pitches needlessly, to say the least.
Against South Africa, India asked the Eden Gardens curator to ready a deck that aids spinners. While there is no harm in that, as a country should try to exploit opponents and prepare pitches that are used to create some discomfort. But where do we draw a line? What happens if you prepare such a pitch where the gulf between two spin attacks diminishes? What’s the point of having the world’s best spin unit then?
India can’t continue to prepare pitches like this
What unfolded at Eden Gardens was the perfect example of how a strategy can cause self harm. India wanted a turning track. They got a turning track. The problem is they prepared one so loaded that it erased the gap between their elite spin attack and South Africa’s far leaner unit. When that happens, you are essentially flipping a coin on who handles chaos better. On day three, that answer was not India.
The argument that home teams should prepare surfaces to trouble visiting sides is valid. Every major Test nation does it. But there is a difference between tailoring conditions and creating something your own batters cannot last 50 balls on. South Africa had two frontline spinners, neither in the same bracket as Kuldeep or Jadeja historically, yet Simon Harmer walked out with match-defining figures.
He took 8 wickets in the Test. Where Keshav Maharaj wasn’t at his peak but still managed to make Indian batters dance to his tunes. Even Aiden Markram, a part-timer, slipped through the most important wicket of Washington Sundar. A pitch is only an advantage when it exaggerates your strengths, not the opposition’s.
And when a visiting captain like Temba Bavuma reads the surface better than the home dressing room, builds a gritty 55 and drags his team from 91 for 7 to a winning position, you have to admit the plan has gone off the rails.
Cricket 6 seconds Even Tendulkar or Kohli wouldn’t have survived Eden Gardens pitch: Harbhajan’s big claimGautam Gambhir’s Test tenure has been a big question mark
This defeat is part of a regular and unwanted pattern. Under Gautam Gambhir, India have won 7 of 17 Tests, lost 8 and drawn 2, a win rate barely above 41 percent. A team that dominated at home for over a decade has now lost four of their last six home Tests and twice failed to chase targets under 150. No other side this century has lost even once at home while chasing anything below that mark. India have now done it twice in 12 months.
Lowest target India failed to chase in Tests
TargetOpponentVenueYear120West IndiesBridgetown1997124South AfricaEden Gardens, Kolkata2025147New ZealandWankhede, Mumbai2024176Sri LankaGalle2015193EnglandLord’s, London2025194EnglandEdgbaston2018The selection calls in Kolkata summed up the confusion. Four spinners, two pacers, and a batting order stretched to nine on paper but packed with left handers and bits-and-pieces profiles. Sai Sudharsan, who had settled into the number three role, was dropped on a surface where a proper top order batter was priceless. Washington Sundar fought as hard as anyone could in the second innings, but beyond him, the dismissals were a parade of indecision.
The pitch was tough, yes. Unplayable, no. India’s lack of application turned a chase of 124 into a demolition. “It wasn’t an unplayable wicket. It was a wicket where your technique and temperament is tested. If you have solid defence, you can score on such wickets,” this is what Gambhir himself stated after the crushing loss.
Eden Gardens itself played its role. Variable bounce, rough patches, constant sharp turn and bounce. But this is the surface India asked for. If you cannot trust your own batting group to survive 45 overs on it, something deeper is broken. This loss was not about Gill’s injury or a funky promotion at three. It was about putting an axe to one’s own foot.
Gautam Gambhir hits axe to India’s foot as batting goes horribly wrong in 1st Test at Eden Gardens Inside Sport India.
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