India hammered South Africa by an innings and 202 runs within four days at Ranchi to whitewash the Proteas. This is the second successive match that India have won by an innings, thus showing the difference in class a character between Virat Kohli's men and the visitors. But a certain aspect the game continued to play truant to India's claim as the number one side Test team; for, majority of the wins have come at home, where the pitches are -- what pundits and fans called -- dustbowls.
On Tuesday, moments after India's win at Ranchi, celebrated commentator Harsha Bhogle sent out a message, telling the critics of Indian pitches to "bury that". It may read rather chastening, but as usual, a plucky one from the man. He wrote, "There is a lot of talk around the world about pitches in India. It is time to bury that because the last few wins have all come on normal pitches. Here in Ranchi, Saha collected a ball over his head on the 4th morning!"
Indian pitches, for that matter of fact pitches in the subcontinent, have low bounce and are typically dry, and often 'dead' by the third day. But India have started producing the so-called sporting pitches, and India have been winning matches on these tops too with pacers doing the job, not spinners.
"The most encouraging thing for India is that the wickets have been shared between the quicks and the spinners. It means there is always a wicket-taking bowler that the captain to turn to," Bhogle wrote in another tweet.
And one fact, as also surmised by Bhogle, which proved this emerging trend is that in this series, spinners Ravindra Jadeja (13 wickets) and Ravichandran Ashwin (15 wickets) shared 28 among themselves, while pacers Mohammed Shami (13 in 3 Tests), Umesh Yadav (11 in two Tests) and Ishant Sharma (2 in 2 Tests) picked 26 wickets.
