ChinmayC Blog

India beat South Africa by 337 runs to sweep the Freedom Test Series 3-0 and lift the Paytm Freedom Trophy today in Delhi. This is Team India’s most deserving win of the Freedom Series Test cricket as the Delhi pitch has behaved the way it has been all these years giving equal opportunities to pacers, spinners and even batsmen. It is a big relief that the pitch has not been converted into a rank turner like in Mohali and Nagpur earlier. The Delhi test has gone into the last session of the fifth and final day and the team that played best has won. From the third day onwards the pitch became slower and slower making run-making difficult and at the same time not yielding the lethal cracks for the bowlers. The Indian victory largely comes on the back of the player of the match Ajinkya Rahane who scored two magnificent back to back centuries with good contributions Virat Kohli who finally came into form and accurate bowling from both the spinners and fast bowlers. Ironically, Rahane is the ...

India got the best pitch possible to seal the Freedom Test Series against South Africa by winning the third test match in Nagpur in less than three days again thus taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match Series. Spinners of India won the first test in Mohali in less than three days and could have repeated the feat in Bengaluru too had rains not intervened from the second day onwards. Bravo India for pitching in perfectly in the perfect kind of pitches provided with perfection by the perfect supporters of Indian cricket. All cricket action at the moment seems to be so spin-oriented that India opted for just one pacer in the squad for the Nagpur test in the form of Ishant Sharma and yet he hardly bowled. The pitch was referred to as ‘diabolic’ by some while for the Indian fans it should described as ‘historic’. Yes, when India win it is always historic and when they lose it is always ‘unfavourable conditions’. Look at the scores. India won the toss and electing to bat first str...

As is considered only natural in this country the first Test between India and South Africa at Mohali ended within three days. India beat South Africa by 108 runs today to take 1-0 lead in the four-match Freedom Trophy Test Series. This result must have made Team India, the team management, the cricket Board and all cricket mandarins extremely happy and all must be praising the curator at Mohali no holds barred for creating such a wonder of a cricket pitch. Yes, for India at home the ‘pitch’ along with the add-ons of other ‘conditions’ matter most rather than the competitive quality of the game or the application of the Indian batsmen or the ‘strike’ capability of the Indian bowlers. This has been the case for decades now. In the seventies or even eighties we still remember the commentators saying Sunil Gavaskar coming up to open the bowling   with fielders hitting the ball very hard to the ground at every opportunity. This was to make the ball softer as quickly as possible so tha...