England Tour Of India 3rd Test Cricinfo

Chilly weather greets Indians

AP File photo shows M.S. Dhoni at nets a day before India's test match against England at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground, Nottingham.

 

Edgbaston wicket has a reputation for being on the slower side

Indian cricket teams are often well received here in Birmingham — a large and vibrant expatriate community attends to the minor hankerings inevitable on long tours — but on Monday morning, M.S. Dhoni's men were greeted frostily.

Not by the fans, who gathered as usual to take photographs and get mini-bats autographed, but by the weather. A chilly wind whistled around Edgbaston, which, refurbished recently, looks fetching in its indigo-blue trimmings. Sweatered and jacketed, the Indians took in the ground on which they hope to stage a comeback.

Edgbaston's revamp has cost a little over £30 million, of which 600,000 has been spent on installing a new drainage system. The capacity has been increased to 25,000; only Lord's can accommodate more in England.

But amidst the cheer of renewal was a moment of darkness. Warwickshire was docked eight points for producing a “poor” pitch for the game against Worcestershire; an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) panel ruled that the wicket had demonstrated “excessive unevenness of bounce”.

It's an embarrassment Edgbaston will look to avoid at all costs. Warwickshire officials were quick to point out that the strip used for the match against Worcestershire was cut on the edge of the wicket-square. The pitch for the Test match is at the centre. It has also been subjected to rigorous preparation for a while now. It had a thick covering of green grass on Monday; while this is likely to be shaved, it's a sign that the surface is healthy.

Stepehen Rouse, the groundsman, has had trouble in the past — 2005 and 2009 were especially bad for him — with rain in the lead-up to a Test match. On those occasions, he said the pitch was like jelly; it hadn't time to harden as he'd have liked.

Rouse has had much better weather this time around. (Although Monday was cold to begin with, the sun came out after the Indians left, in time for the English session.)

The wicket has a reputation for being on the slower side. The practice pitches, which are located outside the ground, were sticky and played slow. Jeetan Patel, the New Zealand off-spinner who has turned out for Warwickshire this season, said most of the pitches he bowled on have been similar.

He added, however, that the Test match strip could be different — it could play slightly better because it had been worked on for longer.

Spinners have had success — Saeed Ajmal took five and Graeme Swann, six, in the last Test played here. Jeetan Patel, who watched the Indians practise, said the spinners got into the game later. The quicker bowlers, he said, would find swing — the construction of a newer, bigger grandstand hadn't changed this.

Edgbaston has had enough for the bowlers: no team has made more than 450 in the last seven years. Still, captains winning the toss have tended to bat. Each of the last four Tests here has followed this script, but never has it been successful. The side batting second has won thrice; the other was a draw.

The Indian practice session on Monday was structured along familiar lines: a game of football, a set of fielding routines, and a long stint at the nets.

Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, and Rahul Dravid were the first to bat, switching between the fast-bowlers' net, the spinners' net, and the ‘throwdown' net. Sachin Tendulkar, V.V.S. Laxman, and M.S. Dhoni replaced them. Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli were the last of the batsmen to have a hit. Amit Mishra was third man in their rota. Mishra and Pragyan Ojha had earlier bowled together. Ojha's quicker left-arm spin found better response from the surface — not surprising, for tacky strips take finger-spin better than wrist-spin.

Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, and Praveen Kumar bowled as well, Ishant striving and succeeding in finding rhythm.

Dhoni struggled again with his batting, and asked for seconds. The conditions in England test his lack of footwork more stringently than any other place in the world.

Batsmen without footwork have succeeded here of course — Majid Khan, the great Pakistan batsman, made a case study of it at Glamorgan. But they do it because of how well they adjust their hands. Their hands take them to places their feet can't. Laxman and, on occasion, Dravid have shown how it's done. Dhoni hasn't managed it as yet. (He also, surprisingly, didn't do any wicket-keeping work on Monday). He has another session before the third Test to sort it out.