Opinion
After the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy in India was organised into a shorter season, things have resumed from the pre-COVID era in Indian domestic cricket.
With the Ranji Trophy heading into the semi-finals, here are the 2022-23 season stats of the four grounds being used in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for Australia’s tour of the nation.
Matches played: 4
First innings scores: 213, 264, 191, 74
Second innings scores: 161, 299, 272, 256
Third innings scores: 420, 379, 221, 254
Fourth innings scores: 278, 124, 101, 54
Captains who have won the toss have always elected to bat first in Nagpur this season. Although we have seen some relatively low first-innings totals, teams batting first have won all of their games at VCA Stadium. However, we do tend to see more result-oriented pitches in four-day cricket compared to the five-day version.
Nonetheless, Nagpur is a bat-first wicket, and we should see batting become easier around Days 2 and 3, or roughly in the second and third innings.
(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Matches played: 3
First innings total: 303, 9-459 declared, 293
Second innings total: 8-427 declared, 9-488 declared, 369
Third innings total: 262, N/A, 170
Fourth innings total: 3-54, N/A, 2-97
We saw two draws and the team chasing emerge victorious in Ranji Trophy games at Arun Jaitley Stadium this season. While we saw an extremely flat wicket in the second game, the lack of cricket played made it hard to generate results. On most days there were about 70 overs of play due to bad light. This is not a huge surprise, as the air pollution in Delhi has affected cricket in the past. Tamil Nadu were 3-54 after six overs chasing 139 for victory in 15 overs, but the bad light stopped play.
To counter the possibility of shortened days of play due to bad light, we may see a result-oriented bowling-friendly wicket to ensure we can get a result in the second Test.
There has been no first-class cricket played at the HPCA stadium since 2020. In the 2019-20 Ranji season we saw four matches played at the HPCA ground – three were draws due to rain and the other was a low-scoring affair.
Similar to how the Indians won the decider against the Aussies in 2017, expect a nice covering of grass to assist the seamers with the new ball and consistent bounce. Dharamsala is Australia’s best chance of grabbing a victory against the Indians in this series.
Matches played: 2
First innings totals: 307, 104
Second innings totals: 135, 277
Third innings totals: 182 (chasing team sent to follow on), 137
Fourth innings totals: 1/11, N/A
Ahmedabad is the one ground where I’m unsure what type of pitch we may see for the Test series between India and Australia. There’s a clear difference in quality between the teams who played against each other here in the past, which means the scorelines make it seem like a bowling-friendly surface.
With spinners in Australia’s side, I don’t see Ahmedabad worrying the visitors too much, even if it turns from Day 1. However, you do suspect Ahmedabad to be a bat-first pitch, with batting becoming extremely difficult in the final innings.
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