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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – Hardly the surprise headline of the year: “I’ve been asked to prepare a turner – Kolkata curator”.
For sheer predictability, in the lead-up hype to India’s do-or-die second Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens from Sunday, the Cricinfo offering was right up there.
Right up there, even, with a local newspaper poster on Thursday proclaiming: “Stormers props ready for Lions”. (“Stormers props not ready for Lions” would have commanded rather more fascinated attention, methinks, as Super 14 kick-off looms large.)
But well before curator Prabir Mukherjee revealed that he had been asked by a BCCI official to concoct a “turning track”, South Africa would hardly have been anticipating anything less than a spirited attempt at a “result” environment employing those principles.
After all, when he was asked before the end of the Nagpur first Test what to expect in Kolkata, Indian television commentator and former Test leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan replied with delicious simplicity: “Slow … and getting slower.”
With Dale Steyn grabbing career-best single-innings figures of 7/51 and 10 wickets altogether in the Proteas’ crushing Nagpur win on a featherbed, the Indians were highly unlikely to want to test the in-form paceman’s effectiveness on any kind of green-top, were they?
There was a time when the prospect of a violently deteriorating dust-bowl would indeed have induced some cold sweats in the South African camp, but the Proteas’ gutsy modern record in India is such that the phenomenon is pretty close to obsolete.
This is not wholly unrelated to the fact that the home nation’s spinners in 2010 do not command quite the kind of awe and mystique they did a few years back.
The retirement from Tests in late 2008 of that great leg-spinner Anil Kumble, among the leading wicket-takers of all time – still third with 619, behind only Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne – has had, I believe, a lot to do with it.
A man with so nearly appropriate a surname when operating on Subcontinent “crumblers”, perhaps Kumble’s biggest gift was his height, which enabled him to gain especially prodigious, fizzing bounce at times out of the rough.
Amit Mishra, by comparison, seems a limited substitute as a “leggie”, and after eight Tests with a bowling average just inside the 40-mark, the jury remains out on his suitability as a worthy recipient of the Kumble baton – significantly, he is rather more diminutive in stature, too.
And if a tall spinner is tidily suited to exploiting temperamental, wearing pitches in India, then the hosts will be mindful that a certain Paul Harris, for all the misgivings some people have about this tenacious customer, will carry South Africa’s hopes on the slow-bowling counter-offensive.
The left-armer is probably feeling a bit better about life after a much-improved showing at Nagpur, where he actually eclipsed both Mishra and Harbhajan Singh.
Another factor to consider, if Eden Gardens does indeed turn a little lottery-like, is that India are under the official spotlight after a Kanpur monster that scuppered the Proteas in the finale Test of 2008.
It was hazardous from day one and the game was over in three days, sparking an ICC inquest after the match referee criticised the pitch in his report. So the hosts may be skating on thin ice if anything significantly less than a fair contest between bat and ball transpires at Kolkata.
There is a wee bit of a mystery factor about the venue – still cavernous despite its gradual whittling down from a capacity of 120 000 to some 75 000 – as it has not hosted any Test match in over two years while renovations have taken place.
But the traditional Indian adage of “win the toss, bat and bat big” is pretty sure to apply: it was certainly the case in the last encounter there in late 2007 when India amassed 616/5 declared first-up against the old enemy Pakistan and the match petered out into a fairly tame draw.
Such an outcome, of course, would be the necessary manna from heaven for Graeme Smith’s side.
The Proteas have a “won one, lost one” record in Tests at Kolkata – a huge conquest by 329 runs in 1996 when Lance Klusener earned his luminary haul on debut of 8/64 in the Indian second-knock collapse to 137 all out, and defeat in 2004 by eight wickets after India only needed 117 in the fourth innings to win.
It would be a surprise if Smith’s 2010 vintage, though, are obsessing with all the pre-match pitch mumbo.
At the risk of these words coming home to haunt me: No Kumble, no massive problem?
Cape Town – Hardly the surprise headline of the year: “I’ve been asked to prepare a turner – Kolkata curator”.
For sheer predictability, in the lead-up hype to India’s do-or-die second Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens from Sunday, the Cricinfo offering was right up there.
Right up there, even, with a local newspaper poster on Thursday proclaiming: “Stormers props ready for Lions”. (“Stormers props not ready for Lions” would have commanded rather more fascinated attention, methinks, as Super 14 kick-off looms large.)
But well before curator Prabir Mukherjee revealed that he had been asked by a BCCI official to concoct a “turning track”, South Africa would hardly have been anticipating anything less than a spirited attempt at a “result” environment employing those principles.
After all, when he was asked before the end of the Nagpur first Test what to expect in Kolkata, Indian television commentator and former Test leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan replied with delicious simplicity: “Slow … and getting slower.”
With Dale Steyn grabbing career-best single-innings figures of 7/51 and 10 wickets altogether in the Proteas’ crushing Nagpur win on a featherbed, the Indians were highly unlikely to want to test the in-form paceman’s effectiveness on any kind of green-top, were they?
There was a time when the prospect of a violently deteriorating dust-bowl would indeed have induced some cold sweats in the South African camp, but the Proteas’ gutsy modern record in India is such that the phenomenon is pretty close to obsolete.
This is not wholly unrelated to the fact that the home nation’s spinners in 2010 do not command quite the kind of awe and mystique they did a few years back.
The retirement from Tests in late 2008 of that great leg-spinner Anil Kumble, among the leading wicket-takers of all time – still third with 619, behind only Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne – has had, I believe, a lot to do with it.
A man with so nearly appropriate a surname when operating on Subcontinent “crumblers”, perhaps Kumble’s biggest gift was his height, which enabled him to gain especially prodigious, fizzing bounce at times out of the rough.
Amit Mishra, by comparison, seems a limited substitute as a “leggie”, and after eight Tests with a bowling average just inside the 40-mark, the jury remains out on his suitability as a worthy recipient of the Kumble baton – significantly, he is rather more diminutive in stature, too.
And if a tall spinner is tidily suited to exploiting temperamental, wearing pitches in India, then the hosts will be mindful that a certain Paul Harris, for all the misgivings some people have about this tenacious customer, will carry South Africa’s hopes on the slow-bowling counter-offensive.
The left-armer is probably feeling a bit better about life after a much-improved showing at Nagpur, where he actually eclipsed both Mishra and Harbhajan Singh.
Another factor to consider, if Eden Gardens does indeed turn a little lottery-like, is that India are under the official spotlight after a Kanpur monster that scuppered the Proteas in the finale Test of 2008.
It was hazardous from day one and the game was over in three days, sparking an ICC inquest after the match referee criticised the pitch in his report. So the hosts may be skating on thin ice if anything significantly less than a fair contest between bat and ball transpires at Kolkata.
There is a wee bit of a mystery factor about the venue – still cavernous despite its gradual whittling down from a capacity of 120 000 to some 75 000 – as it has not hosted any Test match in over two years while renovations have taken place.
But the traditional Indian adage of “win the toss, bat and bat big” is pretty sure to apply: it was certainly the case in the last encounter there in late 2007 when India amassed 616/5 declared first-up against the old enemy Pakistan and the match petered out into a fairly tame draw.
Such an outcome, of course, would be the necessary manna from heaven for Graeme Smith’s side.
The Proteas have a “won one, lost one” record in Tests at Kolkata – a huge conquest by 329 runs in 1996 when Lance Klusener earned his luminary haul on debut of 8/64 in the Indian second-knock collapse to 137 all out, and defeat in 2004 by eight wickets after India only needed 117 in the fourth innings to win.
It would be a surprise if Smith’s 2010 vintage, though, are obsessing with all the pre-match pitch mumbo.
At the risk of these words coming home to haunt me: No Kumble, no massive problem?
