Batting in the pink ball test at Motera should have been like batting against Kumble or Underwood. It was a test of traditional technique

Jonny Bairstow
Ducks in both innings @ Motera

India just beat England in the Motera test in under two days. What happened?

Having watched replays and commentaries over the weekend (because the live cricket is over), my takeaway is that bad batting happened.

Digging a little deeper…

Joe Root gave us the most cogent explanation for why the pink ball used in Ahmedabad behaved differently from the traditional red ball.
 
The pink ball seam is harder and therefore stands prouder. The thicker lacquer surface means the ball comes off the pitch more quickly, especially when the ball lands on the lacquer surface rather than on the seam. The ball also spins more or less depending on whether it lands on the seam or on the surface. This doesn’t mean that there is more spin on the pitch, or that it is two-paced. It does means there is more variation in the spin, and more variation in the pace at which the ball reaches the bat.
 
There is nothing specifically Indian/ sub-continental about this extra variation.
 
This is similar to how a ball would behave on a traditionally English “sticky wicket” drying off after summer rain. Derek “Deadly” Underwood would have reveled in the conditions at Motera.

"Deadly" Derek Underwood 
Would have loved bowling at Motera 

How did good batsmen counter this variation? With classic traditional technique.
 
Traditional batting technique was meant to deal with uncertainty. Well-schooled batsmen got right down to the pitch of the ball, got low, “smelt” the ball, kept their bat just in front of their front pad, played with a straight bat, through the line, into the V, smothered the spin on a good length, and scored big off long-hops that sat up to be thumped or half-volleys that never got the chance to deviate. Cutting off the stumps, sweeping on a length, hitting against the spin and playing from the crease - all behaviours that assume low uncertainty - were all considered bad batting.
 
A classically correct English batsman of an earlier generation, like Dennis Amiss, might have batted for hours at Motera. Sunny Gavaskar’s 96 against Pakistan in Bangalore was made in much more challenging conditions. Karnataka’s Brijesh Patel (long considered a better player of spin than even GR Vishwanath), or Tamil Nadu purists like V Sivaramakrishnan and TE Srinivasan would have been equipped to deal with the variation in both pace and speed. VVS Laxman, India’s fourth innings hero on so many occasions, would have done fine.
 
Today’s batsmen, our sixer-hitting reverse-sweeping galacticos, don’t seem to be equipped with these traditional virtues. Look at the way the top order batters got themselves out.
 
Kohli, Rahane and Foakes were out trying to cut length balls on the stumps. Anybody who has played Kumble could have told them that when the ball is turning just a bit and hurrying on to the stumps, playing horizontal bat shots is suicide.
 
Rohit Sharma and Jonny Bairstow were out sweeping for the length despite the line. Root was out LBW twice, rooted to his crease instead of either getting fully forward or back. Pant was out driving through the line of a ball that was just short of a drivable length. Shubman Gill was out trying to pull a short ball from well outside off. WTF?! 

Rohit Sharma was in charge, until he threw it away

It would be nice if our galacticos also learnt traditional batting, to supplement their sixer-hitting heroics.
 
There were also a surprisingly large number of good batters who missed straight balls. Zak Crawley (who played beautifully in the first innings) was bowled off the first ball he faced from Axar in the second. Pujara and Washington Sundar clean missed ordinary looking length balls from Leach and Root. This looks like batters aren’t sighting the pink ball, especially when they’re new to the crease.
 
That is not surprising. It takes literally years spent out in the middle for an international batter to train his vision to sight a cricket ball that’s dancing around in space. This training is cognitive more than optical. “Seeing the ball like a football” is a cognitive reality. It’s totally natural if a new colour tricks the eye/ mind, if it is harder to see a pink ball, and therefore impossible to “see the ball like a football”.
  
So where’s this going? What next? 

I think the Motera test is an argument for playing more pink ball cricket at the junior, domestic and limited over levels.
 
The ECB has mandated that each first-class county plays at least one pink ball game per year. If that doesn’t seem like a lot, here in India I don’t think any Ranji Trophy games use a pink ball. Without that experience, the next generation of players will also have to discover the pink ball only when they reach the international level.
 
If Root’s insight – that there is more uncertainty in the path of a pink ball than in either a red or white ball - is true, I especially like the idea of pink ball cricket in limited overs games. Test cricket is in perfectly good health (refer Brisbane 2021). Limited overs cricket needs to shift its balance of power to favour bowlers. Pink ball games might be a good way to do so.
 
Finally, from a purely parochial, partisan viewpoint, one positive thing that the “minefield” at Motera has resulted in is that the Poms are whingeing again.
 
Steve Waugh’s invincibles realised that the only way to beat India in India was by enforcing a strict no-whingeing rule. This was the discipline that enabled them to come back from the miracle of Kolkata in 2001, to conquer the final frontier in 2004.
 
During the first Chennai test I was a little worried that Root’s team had learnt from Waugh’s success, that they had trained their minds to enjoy playing in India. But now, with all the whingeing about the wicket, the umpires, the bio-bubble, the rotation policy, their Asian spinner Moeen Ali “choosing” to go home, etcetera, it feels a bit like the wheels are coming of the English bus.
 
England will now play the fourth and final test with both a series win and/ or a spot in the WTC finals out of reach. Are they proud enough to play with passion and purpose, in unquestionably tough conditions, when there is nothing except pride at stake? Or in other words, do they have the relentless intensity of Lloyd's Windies, Waugh's Aussies or Kohli's Indians? Let’s see.

The England Leadership Team
Do they have the hunger to fight on in the fourth test?