Soft ball, hard questions: India’s inexperienced attack has no clear template to follow as conditions remain difficult to read

In Asia, making plans two days before a Test match, based on what a pitch looks like then, is a dangerous business. Often, the most critical work on the surface happens at the last minute, especially if the home side is looking for something dry that will tilt the scales in favour of the spinners.

In Galle, where India and Sri Lanka will play starting Saturday, there was a time when turn was guaranteed. And not just slow turn, but sharp turn and variable bounce as the game wore on. The primary reason for this is the sea breeze that blows across the ground, which dries the pitch.

Typically, if the curator wanted to counter this, he would leave the pitch block as moist as possible and rolled hard. But when you want spin bowlers to play a major part, you let it dry out, and that leaves you open to ending up with an extreme surface.


In 2011, when the Galle pitch was rated “poor” by the ICC, it announced a shift in thinking for Sri Lanka Cricket. They became much more wary of producing rank turners, and ahead of India’s Test there appeared to be some tentativeness about what surface would best suit the home side.

One school of thought was that India needed the wins more than Sri Lanka, in the context of the World Test Championship, so the smart thing to do, even if it was defensive, was to prepare a true surface that let batsmen dominate. This would go against the grain of Sri Lanka’s traditional strength at this venue.

But Morne Morkel, India’s bowling coach, who has fond memories of playing at this picturesque venue, was clear that there would be no shortcuts when it came to taking 20 wickets. India arrived in Sri Lanka 10 days early and put in extra practice sessions to ensure that each member of the bowling group had a chance to identify the approach that would best work for them in the conditions. Given that Mohammed Siraj is supported by Prasidh Krishna (7 Tests) and the uncapped duo of Gurnoor Brar and Auqib Nabi, they needed to put in the hard yards.

“Our skill is there, and the planning will be there, but the biggest challenge coming to Sri Lanka is the heat, the humidity, and the Kookaburra ball going soft a little earlier,” Morkel said, standing on the outfield under blue skies with the fort and clock tower in the backdrop. “It will go soft after 25 or 30 overs, so we have to expect that. In these conditions, it’s all about your mindset. If you’re a fast bowler, if you’re going to bowl the shortest spells, the energy you put in the ball and putting it into good areas — you’ll always have an opportunity. As the Test match will go on, hopefully there will be a little bit of uneven bounce.”

The default position coming into a Galle Test is to stack the spin department, but for once it’s not clear if this is the direction India will take. Prasidh is the frontrunner to partner Siraj if only two quicks were played, but there is a real temptation to go with Brar, who has all the makings of being a persistent threat. “It’s about how we can stack up overs together with intensity and create that pressure. Because we haven’t played a lot of red-ball cricket in the last couple of months, going back into that is going to be a challenge as well,” said Morkel. “Even in our playing days, I thought if you hit the deck hard here you are asking lots of questions on a good length, you’re always in the chance of picking up results. When the ball goes soft, what is our next step? We have to be street smart in terms of how we’re going to use the crease or how we’re going to use our short ball. We need to be able to do some of that quite quickly.”

The long and short of it was that India were in a slightly tricky situation because it was not blindingly obvious what they needed to prioritise: pace or spin. In an ideal scenario, a team would have all bases covered. But, with the inexperience in this attack, a more nuanced approach is the order of the day. It’s intriguing that the pitch should leave so much room for debate given that this is the 50th Test match that will be played at the venue. No other Asian ground has hit that milestone yet. But then, this is the beauty of Galle: enjoying it is much more straightforward than trying to understand it.