India’s heavy defeat to South Africa in the first Test at Eden Gardens has reopened the long-running debate around the team’s approach to home conditions. The match was played on a surface that offered substantial turn and variable bounce from the opening day, creating an unpredictable contest that ultimately hurt India more than their opponents.
Batting second, India managed only a small lead and later collapsed for 93 while chasing 124 — their second-lowest failed chase at home. The absence of captain Shubman Gill, who suffered a neck injury in the first innings, added to the pressure on a batting lineup already struggling on extreme turners.
The controversy intensified when head coach Gautam Gambhir confirmed after the match that the surface had been prepared on the team’s request. His remark — “This is exactly the pitch we wanted” — sparked strong reactions, especially given India’s recent track record on rank turners, including last year’s 0-3 whitewash at home to New Zealand.
Questions are now being raised about whether the strategy aligns with the strengths of the current Indian side, particularly as they prepare for the second Test in Guwahati. The Eden result has also prompted deeper reflection on India’s batting approach and their handling of adverse conditions at home.
In the latest Democratic Review System column, India Today’s sports team weighs in on Gautam Gambhir’s decision to ask for a rank turner for the first Test at Eden Gardens.
With the Indian team failing to contend with spin at home for a third straight time under Gambhir’s tutelage in recent memory, there are only two things that come to my mind. One, that this team lacks the skills needed at the highest level to play quality spin. Two, and this is where the coach needs to take responsibility. Why the fixation on asking for spin-friendly decks when the team has shown little evidence of being able to play spin?
On sporting wickets, as was seen in the England series both home and away, India got much better results. A world-class all-rounder in Jadeja and a crafty spinner in Kulddep are enough to get you wickets on sporting decks. A rank turner becomes an enabler to the opposition spinners who would otherwise have had to work hard to pick wickets. So coach Gambhir needs to accept where the team stands and work as per its strengths.
Once bitten twice shy. Perhaps this phrase was never taught to the Indian cricket team, especially the current team management. What has forced Gautam Gambhir and the current dispensation to fall back on spinning decks? Especially after the humiliation of the New Zealand whitewash. Even after Australia in 2017 and England in 2012, why hasn’t the Indian cricket team learnt the lessons? The answer lies in two things. Denial and delusion. Gambhir’s post-match statement that this is the pitch they exactly wanted falls under delusion and denial. It exposes the underbelly that the Indian cricket team have lost their core competency to bat well in any conditions. Common sense would dictate that one should not repeat past mistakes consistently. But, the message is not getting delivered. The Eden loss is proof that India does not want to learn and, in the future, will never learn
India have played on rank turners in the past, but as R. Ashwin rightly pointed out, it’s the underprepared pitches that spell real trouble for them. When the team management tries to create a surface that doesn’t naturally suit spin-friendly conditions, it often backfires. That’s probably what happened at Eden Gardens. It wasn’t just the turn that troubled India — the uneven bounce also brought the South African pacers into play. Thankfully, Kagiso Rabada wasn’t part of the first Test; had he played, India might have been in even deeper trouble.
That said, it’s fair to admit that a rank turner is never an ideal option — it turns the match into a lottery for both sides and allows even inexperienced spinners to make an impact. Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj are quality bowlers, but history shows that India have often struggled against relatively new names like Matt Kuhnemann, Tom Hartley, and Shoaib Bashir.
India should instead trust their batters to deliver on sporting pitches. After all, with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj leading the attack, India also possess exceptional quality in the pace department.
India’s choice to pivot away from slow turners that still offered good batting conditions and opt for rank turners pre-dates Gambhir – it was a ploy that started in the post-COVID era of Tests when Ravi Shastri was the coach and by and large continued under Rahul Dravid. And while most will argue that it was largely successful, there were plenty of warning signs, even in those series wins, that this approach would come back to haunt India.
Joe Root’s fifer at Ahmedabad. Rookie Aussie spinners Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann look like world-beaters. Rookie English spinners Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir troubled India. All were warning signs, but it was the last instance – at Hyderabad during the India vs England Test series at home – when the penny finally dropped. The Dravid-coached India began to opt for sporting pitches for the remainder of the series, and India comfortably won the next 4 Tests. It seemed like the experiment with rank turners was done. Alas, it has become a staple of the Gautam Gambhir era – and not a successful one at that!
India’s choice to go for rank turners in the home series vs New Zealand last year led to a historic home whitewash and all but ended the team’s WTC Final chances, as the poor conditions bridged the gap between New Zealand’s less-skilled spinners and India’s skilled ones. To make things worse, India is unable to tackle such conditions, making the choice to go for them even more hare-brained. So yes, Gambhir is wrong to have opted for a rank turner at Eden and the sooner the team chooses to play on sporting pitches at home again, the better.
While the pitch at Eden wasn’t ideal, 124 should have been chased but for the lack of technique and temperament of Indian batters. That said, what prompted the Indian team to ask for a dry pitch like this defies logic. After all, recent results show that every time you’ve prepared rank turners, it has comeback to bite you, whereas when you’ve got true batting surfaces, you’ve done well — (England in India 2024, Bangladesh in India 2024, India in England 2025, West Indies in India 2025)
The New Zealand series loss was the perfect example that the rank turner wasn’t the way forward for this Indian team. The warning signs were there.
Gambhir’s mantra of throwing people to the deep end yielded success in England, but he should be looking to play to the strengths of his team as well. Playing spin effectively hasn’t been the strong suit for most of the modern batters, and he should have, as a coach, identified it by now played to the strengths of the team.
While it is important to improve on the art of playing spin, when you have an advantage as the home team to pick the wicket you want to play in, India should have used it.
