I only played two Test matches on the sub-continent, against India back in 2010. In the first Test at Chandigarh, I didn’t make a score but in the second, at Bangalore, I made 128 in the first innings. Looking back, it is perhaps the hundred that gives me the greatest sense of satisfaction because it was undoubtedly the toughest one I made.
I always felt I was a fairly competent player of spin, especially back home in Australia. Within the environment you were accustomed to, you didn’t have to adapt your game too much. Of course, facing quality spin bowling was never easy but you trusted your game. Playing spin on the sub-continent, on the other hand, that is nothing but a constant battle. It’s completely different to anything you will face in the game. Even the very best players of spin will tell you it is the biggest and most testing challenge.
The first 20 to 30 balls are exhausting. Mentally it is so draining and you have to be on it right from the off. When you are facing pace on a bouncy pitch, there is the obvious threat of danger but you know the bowler, steaming in, has little margin for error and you may get the odd breather that you can shoulder arms to and leave. Once you’re done, you regroup and set yourself up again,
But facing a high-class spinner on the sub-continent,there is just no release valve. The ball comes down slowly, but everything happens much quicker. Even if you do get a loose ball, because you are initially battling to stay in and survive, your timing can be off and it’s like there are 15 fielders on the ground. There is pressure to find the gaps and you have to force the ball to the fence, and with men around the bat you feel enclosed. Throw the heat into the equation and the demands grow with every dot ball.
This is the challenge that lies ahead for England in the next few months. Bangladesh will be a lot tougher than what people think. But India will take it to another level – there’s no place like it.
I’ve seen great players suffer there, most notably, Ricky Ponting against Harbhajan Singh in that epic series of 2001. We are talking about one of the finest players to have ever picked up a cricket bat here and even back then there were signs of true greatness. But in that series, when Punter returned scores of 0,6,0,0 and 11, he was as close to a walking wicket you will see.
On the other hand, that series was also when Matthew Hayden came of age. Haydos pummeled 549 runs over those three matches, including a double in the third Test at Chennai. Unlike Ponting, whose method was to poke at the ball tentatively, Hayden met it with conviction. His scoring shot was the sweep and when the ball came over the eye-line he also cashed in. And that was the message he was sending; unlike Ponting, he wasn’t merely looking to survive. He was there to score runs.
When England won in India four years ago, they relied heavily on the runs of Alastair Cook, who scored the small matter of 562 in four matches, but other players worked with him; Kevin Pietersen made a ‘Daddy’ hundred (186) to help set up victory in Mumbai. Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell both scored tons to stave off defeat in the final Test, and Matt Prior wasn’t a bad guy to come in at number seven throughout the tour.
But England don’t have that this winter, and there is just so much pressure heaped on the shoulders of Cook and Root. The inexperienced players will have to learn very quickly and I fear for the tourists if they don’t. What they have to do, much like Hayden did some 15 years ago, is work out a plan and stick to it.
Michael Clarke was undoubtedly one of the best players of spin in the modern age. He was gifted, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t work extremely hard away from the crease. When touring the sub-continent, you would never see him facing endless balls on the bowling machine, tucking them off his hips or playing vicious pulls. It was all about his footwork and hand speed. His defence was incredibly solid, but he had options at the crease and if you are to survive in India playing spin, you need plenty of those.
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, October 7 2016
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