Despite signal from Virat, Nagpur fails to go green

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

Nagpur, November 24

The attempt at creating a greentop in Nagpur failed spectacularly. India’s spinners, who bowled only 10 overs in Kolkata, came to the fore today. Yesterday, Virat Kohli had said he expected the pitch to help the pacemen on the first two days. Today, with the grass seemingly less green, he’d revised his opinion. “The first session should offer something to the quicks,” Kohli said.

It did offer “something”, but that something was quite minute. It’s possible that India’s best pace bowler, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, would have extracted more than just “something” from this greenish wicket; in the event, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav did not get significant help from the wicket. They bowled with discipline, and the Sri Lankans were over-cautious; when the batsmen did try to break free, they played some atrocious shots against the spinners.

Discussing the day’s play, Ravindra Jadeja said the wicket didn’t have bounce or sharp movement. “There was a lot of help from the wicket in Kolkata, so you guys must have felt that every ball will yield a wicket,” Jadeja said. “But that was not the case here because this wicket had grass but not the bounce or swing or the overcast conditions. That’s why we didn’t much help compared to Kolkata.”

Strange selection

India chose a sixth batsman, Rohit Sharma, for this Test, after playing only five specialist batsmen in Kolkata. This is quite baffling. The conditions here are definitely much less difficult than they were in Kolkata; an extra batsman was warranted more in Kolkata than here. 

It seems the team wanted to give match time to Rohit before the South Africa series — Hardik Pandya will be in the XI there to provide options with bat and ball, and Kohli would like to play a sixth batsman on those challenging wickets. Rohit’s selection for this Test, thus, makes sense from a South Africa-centric view:  The team wanted to give him a couple of matches here to keep him Test-ready for South Africa. This goes well with the overall approach of using this series as a longish preparatory camp for the tour of South Africa. The Sri Lankans would hate being taken for granted, but coach Nic Pothas was not complaining at all. “They are planning. They are looking forward to another series that is coming up,” Pothas said. “They have every right in their country to prepare the wickets they want.”

Infatuation with Kohli!

Soon after arriving in India, Pothas went so far as to tell his team not to be “infatuated” with India. To be honest, Pothas himself has appeared to be a man infatuated with India, especially Kohli — Pothas has gushed over Kohli on several occasions, asking his players to “learn from Kohli”. In September, Pothas compared Kohli’s team to the rugby world champions, New Zealand’s All Blacks. 

But in August, in the midst of the thrashing by India, Sri Lanka had gone further, seeking India’s and Kohli’s help with their team-rebuilding process. Kohli had expressed his willingness to chat with Pothas on this.

There’s good camaraderie between the two teams. Niroshan Dickwella spoke about his admiration for Kohli two days ago, and yesterday Kohli repaid the compliment.  Sure, there seems to be some infatuation for Kohli among the Sri Lankans — including the coach who’s been warning against it!