India vs West Indies: Playing under the shadow of King Viv Richards

WATCH VIDEO: Sachin Tendulkar and controversies 

It’s like you’re suddenly plucked out of the Caribbean and thrown into an IT Park, both spiritually and architecturally.

PHOTOS: Indian team members meet West Indies legend Viv Richards

The stadium, as such, is fine and modern, very state-of-the-art and utterly functional, though bereft of any charm. Or as the elderly Antiguan would snide, “Mee na like um. There no spireet.”

For the generation used to watching the game in the Antiguan Recreation Ground, once the island’s spiritual home of cricket, the new stadium is a lifeless monument, symbolic of West Indies’s steep fall from grace. At the cost of constructing an image-enhancing stadium before the 2007 World Cup – benefitting hugely from Chinese largesse – they only succeeded to alienate the public further from the game.

The prime reason has been accessibility. Antigua, like other Caribbean brethren, is a tiny island, measuring 22 kilometres in length and 18 in breadth. But Rec was central, right in the throbbing nerve centre of the town, and spectators leisured in from surrounding shops and offices. It was also considerably smaller than the 20,000-seater SVRS, guaranteeing that even if the crowd was small, it gave an impression that the stadium was full and loud, and hence a lively ambience, made livelier by the music and impressionable characters like Gravy and DJ Chickie.

The West Indies Cricket Board did try to recreate the atmosphere in SVRS – the open spaces or terraces on the eastern and western side of the stadium but the music, and the intimidation it imposed on visiting sides, was lost in the gravel and concrete of the five-storey stands on either ends.

Soon it was to bring indelible humiliation to the board and the man the stadium was named after, when the second Test at this venue, against England, which was abandoned after just 1.4 overs, owing to the excessively sandy outfield, which was not entirely surprising as the stadium was built over a swamp.

Reputation in tatters

“It was an arrow through my heart,” Richards later lamented. It was an inevitable disaster too, as there were precursors to this farce in the World Cup match between Australia and Bangladesh and later during the inaugural Test against Australia. Three years later, Test cricket returned to the stadium, but the reputation was still in tatters. Not even a West Indies win over New Zealand could redeem it. The stigma lived on, and even a thrilling Test match against England last year, which generally brings decent crowds, went largely uncelebrated, not even on the final day when the hosts managed to force a draw by the skin of their teeth, albeit on a wicket that had little life on it.

The scorecard of that match flattered the stubbornly unresponsive surface, veiling its absolute lack of succour for the bowlers. In the end it took England’s second-innings positivity to infuse some life into it, and it nearly paid but for a fine hundred by Jason Holder and rare doggedness by the top-order. In the past such tracks used to be a ruse, when the hosts would offer dull, lifeless strips for visitors in practice matches in quaint locales before rattling them up with vicious surfaces when the actual Test series began. Now, though, slow tracks are more or less the norm, and the strip for the first Test would be no less different, at least the early indications are as much. Moreover, the loose, sandy base will quickly suck the strip of any bounce and moisture on offer. The surface might deteriorate as the game progresses, but the absolute lack of pace will reduce the threat of spinners.

Even several Indian players are second-guessing the strip they will be afforded with will be slow and sluggish, the sort of pitches where platitudes such as grind, graft and patience will do the routine rounds, the sort of pitches they had acquainted with in the practice games in St Kitts. The strip here looks eerily similar, more beige than brown and whatever little smattering that’s left is expected to be trimmed on the morning of the Test.

“How much of the grass remains will have to be seen on the day of the match. But we won’t be surprised if there’s some grass cover on the wicket. But we are expecting a bit of grass cover,” observed batting coach Sanjay Bangar.

Even if they keep the grass as it is, it would hardly abet the seamer, as the grass is dry, made ever drier by the sweltering sun. The grass here is mostly to keep the surface from deteriorating prematurely, and sluggish nature of surface will manifest as the match progresses. “Generally wickets slow down as the game progresses. It’s not like the old surfaces here which had good bounce and carry. So we have been aware of that and prepared accordingly,” he explained.

If their assumptions are vindicated, the series opener could be on a more or less a similar track that they had played those two practice games in St Kitts. “I think we will get similar tracks (in the Tests) but here we will have to wait until July 21 to see how the wicket finally looks like. In St.
Kitts it was a really slow track, a bit similar to Indian wickets and we are preparing for slow tracks in the series,” said Ajinkya Rahane.

Patience, the key

The batsmen, hence, are mentally preparing themselves for long hauls – unlike in the South Africa series at home wherein many of them were too impetuous in short selection. “Patience will be the key here. Once you get set it is important to make each and every session count, because we will have to give time for our bowlers. It is not easy to take 20 wickets on these slower tracks. As a batting unit we will have to take responsibility and I think one or two batsmen will have to get set and score big here. If you are used to getting 100 off 150 balls, maybe here you will have to get 100 off 250 balls. So, as a batsman it is important to play at least 200-plus balls here,” he elaborated.

The adjustments, subtle than drastic, a batsman has to make is as much as technical as mental. “You have to cut out certain shots initially, and after when you get used to the conditions, you can play your shots. It’s important to give time,” he stressed.

What such a strip also means is that India will invariably draft in five bowlers, possibly a two-spinner-two-pacer-combination with Stuart Binny squeezing in as the pace-bowling all-rounder. That the two pacers will be Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma, the latter demonstrating he has regained his sharpness with probing spells in the nets, is near certain. Binny too was largely impressive, and Kohli fully grasps his often understated utility. He was quite efficient in Sri Lanka, labouring on when his strike bowlers were tired and sustaining the pressure, even at times purchasing some swing. Should Kohli persist with this template, he might prefer Mishra to Jadeja, though on slow pitches the latter’s whippy spin and unflagging accuracy could be handful.

But Mishra’s variations, turn and deception might weigh against the left-arm spinner. Playing all three seems a luxury-in this scenario Binny will be the casualty-but both the coach and skipper have frequently reiterated that they will only forge a combination that gives them the best opportunity to knock down 20 wickets. That only once in three Tests has a result been achieved show how arduous it is to coax a result out of this wicket.