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Gillespie on the Eden Gardens' pitch (Source: @KnightsVibe/x.com, @dizzy259/x.com)
The Kolkata Test may have ended prematurely, but the controversy regarding the Eden Gardens pitch is still going on. Despite being on the dominating side, Team India faced a 30-run defeat, and the pitch faced immense criticism.
On the surface, bowlers showcased their excellence, and batters struggled throughout the match. With the pitch debate growing louder, former Australian star Jason Gillespie has now weighed in with his perspective.
Gillespie adds his voice to the Kolkata pitch controversy
After six long years, when Test cricket returned to the Eden Gardens, cricket fans of Kolkata were thrilled to witness an exciting red-ball contest, but it turned out to be different. A five-day Test match ended in just two and a half days. Batters crumbled on a tough surface, with no team managing to reach even 200. Temba Bavuma stood tall amid the chaos, finishing as the match's top scorer with a hard-earned half-century.
After India faced a 30-run defeat while chasing 124 runs, the Eden Gardens pitch faced immense criticism as some of the legends of the game sparked concerns for the future of Test cricket. And when coach Gautam Gambhir revealed that this was the kind of pitch the team actually wanted, the criticism only intensified, turning the debate even sharper.
Adding his voice to the growing debate, Australian legend Jason Gillespie didn't hold back. Reflecting on this issue, he said, the pitch curator should give full freedom to prepare the pitch without the influence of the home side.
“Personal opinion here- and I appreciate I am very much in the minority in professional cricket circles. Why don’t we just allow the curators the opportunity to prepare the best possible surface they can? No expectations from the home team to prepare a surface to suit them,” he wrote on Twitter.
Is home turning into the new away for India in the GG era?
A few years back, India's domination in Test cricket was unbeatable. Over the years, the Men in Blue were the number one Test team, but now the picture tells a different story. When Virat Kohli was India's Test skipper, defeating India on home soil was impossible, even after he stepped down from his role, the home domination was alive.
But the domination has faded since last year. After suffering a whitewash in New Zealand, India endured another rare and disappointing setback, this time on home soil. Even after winning the Test series against West Indies a few months back, their struggles grabbed attention in the first Test of the ongoing Test series against South Africa.
Facing the South African spin attack, the Indian batter struggled on the Eden Gardens' surface. In the last innings, they were chasing a 124-run total but ended up being all out in just 93 runs and faced a 30-run defeat. From once thriving in home conditions to now struggling to chase modest totals, India’s Test dominance in the GG era appears to be fading. Now, suddenly, playing at home is starting to feel uncomfortably like playing away.
