In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter that the ICC has backtracked on its “poor” rating for the third Test in India.
For anyone who has been wearing blinkers for the past two decades, it will come as a shock that the Board of Control for Cricket in India has stomped its feet, thrown a tantrum and yet again got its own way after being slapped on the wrists.
The last two words of the BCCI’s full title are becoming redundant if they aren’t already – India controls cricket, full stop.
The pitch at Indore’s Holkar Stadium was initially rated poor by match referee Chris Broad, and rightly so. It was not up to Test standard and just made it into a seventh session early on day three.
Rohit Sharma is stumped by Alex Carey at Indore. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
After the BCCI launched an appeal, surprise, surprise, the sharply turning wicket has been revised to “below average” which still doesn’t mean much.
An ICC panel reviewed footage of the match (a task made easier by the face that nearly three days of play went to waste) and announced there was an insufficient amount of “excessive variable bounce” for the pitch to be poor.
And all that means is Indore cops one demerit point instead of three – a venue needs to receive five in as many years to warrant a one-year suspension.
As if India care about that – they have that many grounds to choose from already.
How many venues do you think have hosted internationals in India this century alone?
Higher, you’re not even in the right ballpark.
There’s that many ballparks.
Guess again.
Higher.
Thirty-nine.
Indore’s stadium has been used just 12 times for the 400 international fixtures in India since the turn of the century.
The other three pitches from the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series were rated average – that last one in Ahmedabad should also have been deemed poor.
Broad thought the Indore contest was not a fair one between bat and ball as the spinners ran riot, the opposite was the case in the final Test when just 20 wickets over five days of tedium.
It’s almost like the BCCI decided they wanted a draw to ensure Australia didn’t level the series and that should be enough to get them through to the World Test Championship final because Sri Lanka were unlikely to win both Tests in New Zealand.
But that would be pitch doctoring. And they don’t do that in India. Well, that’s what the BCCI official line is and any peaon who questions their authority will be flattened by their heavy roller.
Cheteshwar Pujara is bowled by Nathan Lyon at Indore. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
What this Indore protest was about was simply the BCCI flexing its collective muscle to say because we bring in the vast majority of global revenue for the sport, we run cricket and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
And with the IPL only getting bigger and taking up more space on the calendar, the Indian empire is only going to expand at the expense of international fixtures.
The recent launch of the Major League Cricket start-up in the US is another step towards the T20 leagues not necessarily taking over the calendar but further reducing the scope for the game’s best players to represent their countries in traditional international fixtures.
Just like they’ve done with the new South African T20 competition, IPL franchises have invested in the US league to extend their global reach and create a farm system.
CLICK HERE for a seven-day free trial to watch cricket on KAYO
A goliath like the Mumbai Indians is following the model of the City Football Group who have Manchester City in the English Premier League as their flagship with outposts in New York, Melbourne, Japan, Uruguay, Spain, China, Belgium, France, Bolivia and even India.
Mumbai’s owner Reliance Industries in the past year has added offshoots in Cape Town, New York and Abu Dhabi in the UAE league who all wear their blue and gold colours.
With all the talk about Cricket Australia potentially opening the door for private ownership in the BBL, there is a strong chance a current franchise could end up part of an IPL behemoth.
Jasprit Bumrah celebrates a wicket for the Mumbai Indians against Chennai Super Kings. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
The eight Australian teams are well established so it’s unlikely they’ll change names and colours like Melbourne Heart did when they became Melbourne City in the A-League but the extra foreign capital could help the BBL in the global battle for talent.
More money for a shorter season is on offer at South Africa and the UAE at the moment, which is why the likes of Chris Lynn, Rashid Khan, Colin Munro, Trent Boult and Alex Hales jetted across the Indian Ocean midway through the BBL.
With IPL franchises having ports of call dotted around the globe, it won’t be long before they sign elite players on annual contracts.
The player could then represent the team in the IPL and then maintain their form, earn huge dollars and travel the globe throughout the rest of the year at the franchise’s various feeder sides.
They would earn way more than the central contracts that all Test-playing nations can offer their players to line up for international duty.
Matthew Kuhnemann celebrates taking the wicket of Umesh Yadav. to give him 5-16 in the third Test. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Under this scenario it would be similar to football where the player can turn out for the international matches that sit in spare windows in the calendar and the franchise would release them to their home nation, not the other way around.
The main factor holding back this seemingly inevitable situation at the moment is the prestige of international cricket, the value placed on global tournaments like the T20 and ODI World Cup and the World Test Championship.
Rolling out poor pitches and then not being accountable for it may not seem like a major cog in the wheel in the grand scheme of things but it’s another example of cricket not giving its diehard fans due respect.
One shortchanged the supporters by providing an uneven, albeit must-see, contest for a little more than two days. The other turned what could have been an important final Test into a snoozefest.
Both the third and fourth Tests were poor whichever way you look at them and those kinds of pitches need to be eradicated in international cricket or the T20 leagues have already won, if they haven’t already.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
A good read. This is about the results the pitch produce. I’d rather see a prescription, a set of prescribed instructions, on how the pitch is produced. And that these procedures are to be followed to the letter of the law. As a guiding principal the pitches should be produced to tone down their natural tendencies. Like reduce the spin encountered on Subcontinentalese pitches or the speed of Australian and Seth Efrican pitches. Not fully developed but a starting point ——— Like an “equality of opportunity” as opposed to an “equality of outcome” (at the risk of sounding like Jordan Petersen)
whymuds
Roar Rookie
Possibly the best piece I've ever read on the limitations of the ICC pitch rating system. Love to see technology and data used more to help with pitch ratings. https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/is-the-icc-s-pitch-rating-system-fit-for-purpose-1365110
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
Well to be fair it was below average . What’s not said was just how far down below average …I genuinely now fear for the future of Test Cricket though . Past few weeks we’ve had a West Indies vs South Africa Test series and all matches played out to empty stadiums . These were not below average attendances , They were far below average ..ie. Empty ..Yet when The Capetown version of Mumbai Indians T20 franchise takes to the field , its usually to capacity or near capacity crowds . Yes my fears are well grounded I’m afraid to say .
Chanon
Roar Rookie
That’s a scary proposition!
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
You can look up your "Name", as an asteroid and, if you locate it in your chart, it will describe your individuality
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
The BCCI are whinging crybabies. They cry over every perceived infraction. They'll let the sucker vine, the parasitic plant, known as T20 will suck the life out of the host plant; Test Cricket. Once Tests have been killed the parasitic plant, T20, will die too. ----------- In breathlessly inebriated news Test Cricket dies in 2068 when Pluto goes into Aries. Aries rules Team sports based on balls and aggression and Pluto does big, once-in-a-lifetime events. Pluto is change; Pluto razes and raises. I think the physical aspects will the same but the scoring system and the time n space parameters of cricket maybe be radically altered.
Chanon
Roar Rookie
Sh.t for a second l thought l had a planet named after me or vice versa :stoked:
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
But no one has been trying to doctor wickets at the MCG. Especially not by shaving off the grass to virtually ensure it doesn’t last five days.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Fair point Jeff about about the boot now being on the foot as far as who has the most weight in world cricket. But I’m not sure there’s been much if any evidence of pitch doctoring by England or Australia. When the MCC ruled the roost I can’t remember obvious incidents where countries like Australia, or anyone else, were told to put up or shut up - but perhaps my memory or knowledge are lacking. Don’t think Bodyline was an example of that - arguably Australia spit the dummy, and while the Board initially backed down on accusations of unsportsmanlike play, neither Jardine nor Larwood played against us again. And the MCC tried to make Larwood apologise! England were also good about spreading the game in days when travel was all by boat. Tests against very weak sides in the Windies and NZ, who Australia only played once before 1973 because we deemed them hardly up to Sheffield Shield standard.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Must agree. Except I wouldn’t have called the last test pitch poor, because it was a fairly consistent surface. It’s possible that India did try to make it as flat as possible, to avoid a repeat of Indore where spin was so random it brought our spinners more into the game and made it more of a lottery. We can’t know. Sometimes pictches turn out flat despite the best efforts of the groundsman. At least it was an even surface for 22 metres, rather than having the grass deliberately shaved off on a length as in the first two Tests. I would have rated them poor. As well as Indore. The way for India to go is to leave more grass on at the beginning of the match as they used to do. A bit like in that ODI game where Starc bowled them out cheaply. By the third or fourth day it will be spinning quite a bit. But of course India won’t do that. Paul’s point about demerit points not deterring India is right, though the 39 number is a bit misleading. They’ve used 18 grounds for Test matches since 2000 and they hardly need to go outside that list, nor would the bigger associations collectively want to miss out on a Test against the top Test nations. The demerit points do have some deterrent effect by shaming the culprits, but obviously that doesn’t work if the BCCI gets its way like this.
Nobody likes a smarta*s
Roar Rookie
Nice one! :happy:
Nobody likes a smarta*s
Roar Rookie
Unsurprising. When Indians do not like the referee’s opinion they appeal and usually, the result is changed. I WONDER WHY? Remember when Tendulkar was found guilty of tampering with the ball? Well, that result was overturned on appeal to. Nice one
The Late News
Roar Rookie
Nyet comrade.
Derek Murray
Roar Rookie
I sincerely hope not- I have tickets for the first two days, taking my mum who is in town from Sydney
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Is that you, Chicken Little?
Jeff
Roar Rookie
It was a poor pitch. And was deservedly rated as such. Though both teams had to play on it. But this isn't a BCCI issue per se. It's an international cricket issue that has been going on for 150 years. For most of that time it was the likes of the BBCI that were told to "put up and shut up". Even Australia was in that bracket for the first 50-ish years of international cricket when England was the opponent. Australia then got its "revenge" when playing non-England/MCC sides. The preferred outcome is a true independent international administrator unfettered by "local" politics influenced by the power dynamics of the time. But practically, cant see it changing any time soon. Likely the BCCI's attitude is "now it's our turn" to boss the administration after decades of themselves being bossed. The seeds have been sewn. ..
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
I got 22 runs from apricots alone
Nick
Roar Rookie
Imagine the sixes prevented by leaping up at the boundary line...
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Love it. And "revise" the teams playing in the WTC between India and India A.
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Dwarf or Dwarsh?