Seam-friendly tracks leave India in a spin

After losing the Galle Test - which they dominated - inside three-and-a-half days, India left for Colombo on Sunday. They will turn up for practice at the P Sara Oval on Monday, the day Sri Lanka votes in the elections. The Sri Lankan elections were the main reason the second Test, Kumara Sangakkara's final international match, was moved from his home town Kandy to Colombo, where the last two Tests of the series will be played.

India's batting against Rangana Herath and Tharindu Kaushal have given Sri Lanka a glimpse of the visitors' Achilles heel, and also brought home a rude reminder to the Indians. In the five years since India last played a Test in Sri Lanka, other than a generational shift in both teams, India's cricketers have had to deal with more than just the departure of their giants.

The very ground beneath India's feet has shifted, and its after-effects were seen in Galle. Over the course of the last few years, conversations with senior players, coaches and selectors involved in domestic cricket have revealed a pattern with consequences that can be quite severe.

The last decade has been marked by a slowly increasing clamour to change the nature of the Indian pitches. Following the 2011-12 debacles in England and Australia, there was a clear advisory given to curators nationwide to keep a minimum grass cover - between 4mm and 5mm mostly, with some going up to 8mm - on each surface and to ensure hard surfaces. The overall purpose was to ensure that India's batsmen were able to handle pace and bounce when travelling overseas. The idea caught on slowly, but the drive to make tracks more conducive to fast bowling with more than a shred of grass is today widespread across state associations.

Such pitches have served three functions: they produce outright results, supply a regular stream of medium-paced seam and swing bowlers for the home team, and change the balance of the squad. More domestic teams now play three seamers and a spinner rather than the more traditional balance of 2-2.

These changes with regards to pitches has led to a very dramatic change in the outright results produced in the Ranji Trophy. In 2011-12, only two out of seven knockout matches had an outright result. In the 2012-13 Ranji Trophy, there were 46 outright results in 115 matches. In 2013-14, every knockout game was decided outright, barring the rain-marred semi-final between Punjab and Karnataka.

The outright results have also produced shortened matches, with even lesser involvement of the single spinner. In the last four Ranji Trophy seasons, no spinner has featured among the top three wickets-takers. In 2014-2015, the only specialist spinner to feature in the top 10 on the list was offspinner Swarupam Purkayastha of Assam, at No. 10. While Karnataka's S Aravind, who does bowl slow left-arm, was the fourth-highest wicket-taker, he picked up most of his 42 Ranji scalps as a left-arm medium pacer.

The flipside of this predominance of pace-men has meant fewer spinners employed, fewer overs bowled by spin, and fewer opportunities for batsmen to tackle the slow men. This has led to a lack of exposure to quality spin for young Indian batsmen, and far too few of the "10,000 hours" of practice required in conditions assisting spin.

The experience earned by playing a range of spinners in a large number of matches over and over again every season gave young players of a previous generation the required "skill-set" against spin. But again, if that skill-set is not put to repeated use and examination, it can erode. India's series defeat at home to England in 2012 at the hands of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, as well as their struggles against Moeen Ali, are cases in point. Not enough quality spin in not enough pressure situations in not enough domestic games will add rust even to the most skilled practitioners of batting against spin bowling.

India's new generation of batsmen find themselves trapped by the limitations of an altered cricketing reality. Capable against bounce, pace and seam, they are working with a far narrower range of experience against spin. Playing quality spin requires practice, as many hours of it as possible. Their game is neither put through a large bank of quality spin, nor are they tested enough to help them find individual solutions.

The first step to playing spin is domination: the batsman basically dictates terms against the spinner. It must be backed by precise footwork, intent, and a sound defensive technique to play out a good ball in order to improve shot selection and reduce risk.

What was on view in Galle from India was the utter reverse. The starting point, defence, muddied the waters and the batsmen's mind. What followed was poor shot selection, with the bowler fully aware that the reckless strokes were just around the corner. India's desire to juice up their pitches to aid their batsmen to succeed overseas and set their fast-bowler conveyor belt moving has also rapidly depleted their stock of spin bowling. The situation can definitely be redressed, but however long it took for the paucity of spin to come into play, it may take the same amount of time to get India's confidence against quality slow bowling to be re-established.

The irony is that Sri Lanka, by contrast, are clear about what is to be done at home. Their domestic cricket, not as flush with cash as India's, does not tinker too much with the tracks. Sri Lanka do not hanker for green tops and pace like fire. At home, their plans are clear with regard to what works and who can be called upon to do that work for them.