Pitches in India
Pitches in India have historically supported spin bowling rather than seam or swing. A ball bowled at Pace may carry to the Keeper on two bounces taking the Slip catching out of the equation. Such pitches had virtually no grass, afforded little assistance for pace, bounce, or lateral air movement, but created good turn. In decades past, legendary spin bowlers—most notably the Indian spin quartet of the 1960s and 1970s, consisting of left-armer Bedi, offspinners Prasanna and Venkataraghavan, and legspinner Chandrasekhar—routinely toyed with visiting teams to plot dramatic victories for India in home test matches, particularly on turning pitches in hot, humid conditions at Eden Gardens in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta) and Chepauk in Chennai (then known as Madras). Sometimes 2.5 inches of turn favours the batsmen and spinner reckons not to spin the ball. They outwitted opposing batsmen not only through line, length, and trajectory variations but also by physically and psychologically exploiting rough spots resulting from wear and tear on the playing top and cracks from increasing surface dryness as a game progressed. The Indian batsmen being superb players of spin bowling have generally relished home conditions. Also few opposition teams have fielded quality spinners with Australia having Shane Warne in the team an obvious exception. However, when England toured India in 2012, having lost the first test they played a second spinner, Monty Panesaar, to accompany Graeme Swann in the remaining three tests, of which England won the second and third, drawing the fourth. Unusually, both English spinners took more wickets more cheaply than their Indian counterparts.[7] Some pitches do favour swing and seam such asBangalore. While the Brabourne and Wankhede stadiums in Mumbai and Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi never offered nearly as much turn to spinners, winning a series in India was nevertheless quite difficult, and considered an ultimate challenge for visiting teams, as it is to this day.
Indian pitches and attitudes have changed considerably in the past few years though. The induction of several newer 'green top' venues (such as the ones at Mohali and atDharamshala), the emergence of Indian medium-fast bowlers, plus the development of domestic league cricket with international participants in the form of IPL,Ranji Trophy, ICL, have resulted in a greater variety of pitches. Some contemporary pitches provide good support for pace, bounce, and swing, giving visiting teams from countries such as South Africa and Australia the feeling of being at home. Surfaces are often tailor made to be flat tops or excessively batsmen-friendly, for the sake of maximizing entertainment value, at the expense of all types of bowlers. But at time the reverse is true especially in the IPL wherein pace heavy teams often come-up with green pace friendly pitches to maximize chances of victory.