Border-Gavaskar Trophy: ‘Bizarre’ And ‘Unfair’, Pitched Battle Begins

The conspiracy theory will only get deeper if Australia, who are seeing ghosts in the track, especially for their left-handers, see some spin right from the get-go.

New Delhi: One day left for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy four-Test series to begin, and as always, something had to give. The Australians have come to India convinced that they will be provided with square turners and their entire body language since arrival has by and large shown that they are well and truly concerned about what sort of track they will encounter. On top of that the ‘selective’ curation of the pitch at the Nagpur hasn’t improved their mood one bit, and that reflects in the media reaction ahead of the series opener. No surprises really, since one was beginning to wonder where the needling would come from, now that the contest is about to get underway.

The treatment of the pitch at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium at Nagpur has been mildly called “bizarre” and “dodgy” in some quarters, while Australian journalist Robert Craddock goes to the extent of calling the “multi-preparation” of the pitch “straight-up pitch tampering”.

So, the fun and games have begun, and not a day too soon. There were little indications earlier too, but every time the Indian authorities have cocked a snook at the Australians’ wish for pitches that would help the visitors, the mercury always rises.

The conspiracy theory will only get deeper if Australia, who are seeing ghosts in the track, especially for their left-handers, see some spin right from the get-go.

One wonders where the Australians get the impression that they’d see the hospitality filter down to the pitch as well. But that’s they way it is with them.

Hostilities haven’t been rare in India-Australia series. Be it from the Monkeygate scandal of the 2007-08 season, which got off with the argument between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds, which snowballed into one of the biggest showdowns in cricket, so much so that the Indian team threatened to pull out of the series unless the three-match ban slapped on Harbhajan was not withdrawn, as it eventually was.

Invariably, most of the battles were fought while Sourav Ganguly and thereafter Virat Kohli were leading the Indian team. The former had introduced the culture of giving back as much as they got to the Indian players, and with the Australians always ready to scrap it out in the middle, things got testier with every series and Kohli wasn’t one to back down either.

His ‘brain-fade” battle with Steve Smith at Bengaluru in 2018 is another lasting memory of the Border-Gavaskar Series, when the former Australia skipper was caught seeking guidance from the dressing room on whether he should seek television referral for an LBW decision. The move was caught by Kohli, who stopped just short of accusing the Australians of cheating.

The battles were always there. The banter between Rishabh Pant and Tim Paine, where the latter asked Pant to babysit his kids was met in good humour after Pant was seen posing with them.

But with the familiarisation between the players as they became teammates through franchise cricket resulted in most of the sledging dying down, so now it is up to the Australian media to highlight the issues, real or imagined.

But let’s be fair. India vs Australia won’t be the same with a little controversy, would it? Just adds much-needed masala to the already boiling mix.