Two scintillating centuries, one by opener Rohit Sharma in the first innings and another by Ravichandran Ashwin coming in at number 8 in the second, has probably settled for good the debate over the “Test worthiness” of the pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai where India and England are playing the second match of a four-Test cricket series.
Sharma’s 161 set up the match for India as they made 329 and then, aided by Ashwin’s five-for, dismissed England for 134 to take a massive 195-run lead.
After the thrashing by England in the first Test on an adjacent pitch at the same ground a few days ago, India came up with a rank turner in a bid to level the series, which now seems a formality considering the fact that the visitors have lost three wickets for just 54 in an improbable 482-run chase.
India were 106 for 6 in their second innings yesterday when Ashwin walked in to join captain Virat Kohli and took very little time to settle in before taking charge and batting with an authority usually associated with top-order batsmen.
Just a few weeks ago, in Australia, Ashwin had been one of the architects of India’s 2-1 historic Test series win.
In the third Test at Sydney, he copped numerous painful blows to his body in a battling defensive stand with Hanuma Vihari to draw the match and keep India’s chances of a series victory alive.
On that occasion, he made 39 not out after being barely able to stand straight the night before because of a back problem.  He was “crawling on the floor” with pain as his wife put it, but on the field he stood like a rock for what seemed like an eternal 190 minutes to frustrate the Australians.
Fast forward to yesterday and he was in a different avatar as he belted 106 off just 148 balls with 14 boundaries and a six on a surface from where the ball jumped and spat at batsmen. He and Kohli put on a stand of 96 vital runs to prove that application and an impeccable balance between caution and aggression were keys to success on such surfaces.
Test cricket is often as much a battle of mental strengths as it is of sheer physical skills and England seem to be short on both as far as the ongoing match is concerned.
The hosts had made no secret of the fact that a turner would be produced for the match and England, after losing the toss, probably had conceded the battle in their mind to the Indians.
Joe Root, one of the greatest players of spin of the modern era, who scored two double-centuries and fell little short of a third over the past few weeks, had a rare batting failure and that seemed to take the fight out of the visitors.
The topic of poor pitches will come up in the future too, but in the ongoing Test it’s not much of an issue. It’s just that the Indians have superior skills and experience dealing with such conditions just like England have when they play Asian sides on their seaming but equally deadly tracks.
Social media warriors, meanwhile, can go do what they are best at – have a go at each other and keep everyone entertained.