It was just last season, if memory serves, that Australian cricket seemed to be on life support, with questions abounding about some of the decision-making in terms of selections and anything other than Don Bradman-like play being assailed as unacceptable at the international level.
The worm seems to have turned this year, with the most recent example being that of the Indians’ resorting to shenanigans involving the pitch in Pune that resulted in the ICC levying a fine against India.
Everyone knows it is not all that tough to grow grass in India, so there is obviously something sinister afoot that only serves to add extra glory to Captain Steve Smith’s recent hundred.
Pune pitch curators have resorted to metal objects, hessian bags, hoses and other mysterious foreign objects in the attempt to extend the series to last the entire five days.
It was a parched dusty bowl that influenced the first Test, although that seems to have been to the Australians benefit. Now, the Bangalore centre square appears to be far more lush, but not of the sort that would serve the purposes of reverse swingers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.
Such gamesmanship is to be viewed with suspicion and everyone knows that were the Indians to be the tourists, nothing of the sort would ever occur, because quite simply, that isn’t cricket.
