Indian bowling coach Paras Mhambrey said on Saturday that the Ranchi pitch has behaved contrary to the team’s expectations after the home side stuttered to 219 for seven in response to England’s first-innings total of 353 in the fourth Test between the two sides.
India were trailing by 134 runs in response to England’s 353 runs on end of Day 2 at Ranchi and the newly middle order batting line up of India was just caught over on the field with balls keeping low on Day 2 itself as said by Paras Mhambrey .
Ranchi’s low bounce catches India off-guard
India’s rare defeats in home Tests over the last decade have tended to be of two types. In Pune in 2017 and Indore last year, they lost to Australia on square turners that narrowed the gap between India’s spin attack and that of the visitors. In Chennai in 2021, they lost to England on a pitch where the toss had a significant influence on the result: it was flat on the first two days, when England piled up 578, and began to take appreciable turn thereafter.
Now, after two days of play in Ranchi, India could be on their way to another home defeat. They are seven down and 134 adrift of England’s first-innings total, and they will be batting fourth. And the pitch that has helped bring them to this position has been a curious one, combining the effects of the Pune/Indore-style bunsen and the Chennai-style toss magnifier.
It hasn’t exactly been a square turner, but it has armed spinners with variable bounce – particularly low bounce. And while the Ranchi pitch hasn’t been anything like flat at any point, uneven bounce has seemed to have a greater effect on day two than it did on day one, and it’s only likely to get worse. The toss, then, may have been crucial.
There’s a caveat, though. For losing the toss, India gained a window of seam movement and awkward bounce for their fast bowlers on the first morning, when there was a bit of moisture in the pitch for the new ball to work with. The debutant Akash Deep took three wickets in his opening spell, helping reduce England to 112 for 5.
Since then, though, England have had the best of the conditions, and have batted and bowled brilliantly to take full advantage. Batting became easier through the second and third sessions of day one, when the pitch dried out and the ball lost its hardness and shine, and while low bounce was a threat even on day one, it only seemed to get more pronounced on day two.
The conditions have contributed to the vulnerable position India find themselves in, and their bowling coach Paras Mhambrey suggested they were surprised by how this pitch has played, and how quickly uneven bounce has become a factor.
Indian bowling coach Paras Mhambrey surprised with variable bounce as India left tottering after 2nd day
Team India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey admitted that the variable bounce in Ranchi on Day 2 of the fourth Test against England surprised them. The former Indian cricketer said that they merely expected to get the wicket slower.
Indian batters found it tough against the English spinners on Day 2 in Ranchi as Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley shared six wickets between them. Only Yashaswi Jaiswal among Indian batters crossed the 50-run mark, as he got out for 73 to Bashir.
Speaking at the post-day press conference, Mhambrey said they historically expected the pitch to only get slower.
“From the couple of games that we have seen out of here previously, generally, the nature of the wicket gets slower and slower as the days progress. In the past also, in the couple of games that were played here, it has got slower and gotten on the lower side as well. So we expected that. But to be honest, we didn’t expect the pitch to play that low on Day 2 itself.”
He elaborated:
“I think couple of balls did keep low in the first innings also. That’s what we didn’t expect. We expected it to get slower, but not the variable bounce that we have seen over the last couple of days.”
Jaiswal got the ball almost similar to Ben Stokes as the ball kept low to hit the stumps. England’s ace batter Joe Root scored a sensational century to propel the tourists to a competitive first-innings total of 353.
Paras Mhambrey hesitates to call Ranchi pitch a rank turner
Paras Mhambrey suggested that they had no hand in preparing a wicket like this and brushed aside the notions of the surface being a ‘rank turner’.
“I don’t think the venues are something that we can control. This was a venue allotted for the series. The way the wicket plays out here is similar. it’s always not been a rank-turner. I wouldn’t call this a rank-turner because there was variable bounce.
I don’t think there were too many balls that really spun sharply or unplayable deliveries. There was definitely variable bounce, variable bounce on the lower side, that made the batting difficult.”
In the past, India have made their preference for spinner-friendly pitches clear during certain home series. During the Border-Gavaskar series last year, their coach Rahul Dravid admitted that the pressure of having to win Test matches and accumulate World Test Championship points was leading them to push for turning pitches rather than flat ones.
The first three Tests of this India-England series have witnessed a return to a more traditional style of Indian pitch, largely batter-friendly through the first three days or so, with wear and tear bringing spinners into play thereafter. This Ranchi pitch has been different. In the lead-up to the Test match, India may have had a case to ask for a turning pitch given that they were resting Jasprit Bumrah, their leading fast bowler and most influential player of the series seems to be missing something.
At stumps on Day 2, India were 219/7 as England hope to take the last three wickets for as minimum runs as possible while India will hope to cut down the deficit as much as possible to give their bowlers a chance in the 2nd innings on the 3rd day.
