Daijiworld Media Network
Kanpur, Sep 22 : The 500th Test of India is a milestone that has been marketed energetically by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. While a host of former players, captains and administrators are expected to be in attendance, it'll all matter little once the first ball is bowled. The focus has been on getting the eyeballs in before that first ball. Kanpur has hoardings congratulating Rajiv Shukla's administrative powers in getting the 500th Test to the town.
India have won the toss and have opted to bat
Kohli: 'We will bat, looks like a good wicket for day 1. Will look to put good runs on the board. The start has been good in the WI and the preparation has been good for this series. I couldn't have imagined being the captain for the 500th Test. I feel honoured. We have 6 batsmen, with 2 spinners and 2 quicks.'
Williamson: 'Would have been nice to win the toss [chuckles]. Looks a dry surface, would have liked to bat first but to to be. Had a good weekend, the wicket looks different to the Delhi wicket. Looking forward to an exciting team unraveling here on this pitch. We have 3 spinners, one all-rounder, and Boult and Wagner are the two seamers.'
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Murali Vijay, Lokesh Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli(c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Wriddhiman Saha(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav
New Zealand (Playing XI): Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson(c), Ross Taylor, Luke Ronchi, Mitchell Santner, BJ Watling(w), Mark Craig, Ish Sodhi, Neil Wagner, Trent Boult
New Zealand's recent World T20 win over India at Nagpur is fool's gold, most certainly, but it'd be reckless to disregard it in entirety. A now better-traveling India, dared into green domestic pitches, have looked routinely vulnerable to quality spin and would be a wary unit, despite South Africa's 3-0 loss advocating otherwise. Craig, Santner and Sodhi are a heterogeneous triumvirate, even a potential triumvirate, but Indian Test venues are mysteriously averse to foreign spin. Ask Warne. In contrast, India's spin is a celebrated entity, and given Ashwin's form, even a savage entity; Kohli's Test credentials not so much, and considering the greatness that beckons him, India's captain will be eager.
Pace bowling looks agonized even before crack-patterned clay courts can threaten so; an ankle injury has forced Southee out of the tour while Neesham and Ishant are out of this Test owing to a rib injury and chikungunya respectively. What remain are opportunities.
Indira Gandhi was India's Prime Minister when they last lost a Test at Kanpur. It's been 33 years since the West Indies won here but the present-day stadium doesn't quite embody India's dramatic progress - in economy or cricket - or so it seems, for this edition of Green Park is a breathing paradox: lambasted by Mickey Arthur for its facilities, berated by ICC for its dustbowl, snubbed by Australia for its modest everything, and summoned by cricket tragics for defining misnomers - Green Park & dustbowls, see it? - here it returns after a 7-year hiatus, teasing apprehensions about its unbending loyalty with the rights to host India's 500th Test, a milepost which also kick-starts their grandest home season. For all of us here, this is Pratyush Sinha welcoming you to the 1st Test at Kanpur, a fortress that's thirsty in more ways than one.
Test match Preview
The 500th Test of India is a milestone that has been marketed energetically by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. While a host of former players, captains and administrators are expected to be in attendance, it'll all matter little once the first ball is bowled. The focus has been on getting the eyeballs in before that first ball. Kanpur has hoardings congratulating Rajiv Shukla's administrative powers in getting the 500th Test to the town.
The venue itself has a lot of history to it, with the crowd on various occasions being touted as one of the most passionate in the country. Although the first of the 21 Tests here was played way back in 1952, the last one came seven years ago. The administrators have tried to beef up the crowd by giving out free tickets for school children and pricing tickets lower. But the main attraction will be the players themselves - both teams combined have quite a few players to watch out for. Fittingly, the captains themselves are amongst the best batsmen of this generation. Both Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson will have their own subplot brewing as comparisons are drawn out. But there is a lot more for both of them to focus on as the first of the three Tests kickstarts.
New Zealand is not a team that can be regarded lightly. In fact, there is good reason to believe that they possess the most potent attack amongst the teams set to tour India over the next few months. That assumption is because of the three spinners at their disposal - Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Mark Craig. Not many visiting teams can boast of such variety in the spin department.
Increasingly, with the focus being on spin-bent pitches in India, opposition teams will start thinking about playing more spinners than fast bowlers. There will be lesser dependency on reverse swing, as was the norm for successful visiting teams in the past. So now that they've picked a left-arm spinner, a leg-spinner and an off-spinner, it will be interesting to see if Williamson and Co. go forward and play all three in the final eleven. That could come at the cost of either weakening their batting order a little or sacrificing on pace. If they do go in with three, it will present the most attacking front straightaway and judging by the way New Zealand try to play the game, it may not come as a big surprise.
What will matter more though is how confident a captain Williamson is in attacking with the spinners. When South Africa visited India last year, there was criticism about the way Hashim Amla, the then captain, under used Imran Tahir, their most attacking spinner. New Zealand, much like South Africa, have depended on their pacers to get them the wickets but unlike the Proteas, the team managment also displayed the greatest willingness to turn their gameplan around completely as witnessed in the World T20, when they dropped both Southee and Boult in favour of spinners - a strategy that was immensely successful.
For India, too, the team combination will be focussed upon greatly. Kohli's pet theory of five bowlers has gone under some change in recent times. In West Indies, during the washed out final Test, they did go in with just four bowlers. Addressing the press at Green Park, Kanpur ahead of the first Test, Kohli hinted at going in with just four bowlers in these conditions. Playing three spinners and just one fast bowler is not something that Kohli has been averse to doing. But the absence of Ishant Sharma as the fast bowler (out due to Chikungunya) could throw a spanner in the works.
If the fast bowler is to be used in bursts as an attacking option too, then Kohli and Co might just prefer someone like Mohammad Shami or Umesh Yadav over Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who performed very well in West Indies.
A similar difficult decision is also due in the batting order with Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Cheteshwar Pujara having solid cases to take up three spots at the top of the order. Any one of three left out will have reason to feel aggrieved, but the problem of plenty is always a happy thing for the team management in the longer run.
Almost all of these combinations are dictated by the strip that is central, literally and figuratively. The pitch has been focussed upon greatly, much to the displeasure of Kohli, but it is an aspect that isn't going to easily die down. Most of the team members including Anil Kumble, R Ashwin and Bhuvneshwar spent some time assessing the pitch during their practice session and it is an open secret now that this Indian team's plans (both batting and bowling) are centred around spin in Tests at home.
The pitch at Kanpur, under the supervision of Shivkumar, the chief curator, looks a very dry one with cracks all over. The cracks don't necessarily mean that the pitch will turn from ball one but certainly indicates how it will play sooner. The grass, again dry, had been brushed off a couple of days before the start. So that should leave no surprises to any as to what kind of a surface is being prepared.
As a long Test season beckons, the first of the many could well set the tone for what can be expected over the course. The young Indian team under Kohli see this as a chance to forge their legacy. New Zealand, under Williamson, might well be their biggest obstacle if they can execute their spin plans right.