"Their careers are at stake": Gambhir takes on flat pitches after India fail to defend 249

Gautam Gambhir has seen enough flat pitches. A night after West Indies chased 250 against India in Ranchi, the head coach used his press conference to stand up for his bowlers and ask, in effect, who the game is being played for.

"You don't want a good bat-and-ball competition? What you want to see, that's also what we want to see," Gambhir said. "We also want to see an even contest. These bowlers are our bowlers, not someone else's bowlers. Their careers are at stake; they have worked hard to sit in this dressing room. If it's an even competition, we'll see a better game of cricket."

It was a pointed message, and it came with numbers behind it. The second T20I at the JSCA International Stadium produced 501 runs and 33 sixes in 38.3 overs. India made 249 for 5, the highest T20I total ever made at the ground, and West Indies still won by six wickets with nine balls to spare. The series is level at 1-1.

What Gambhir said about the pitch and the dew

Gambhir was careful not to blame the surface for the defeat. He said the conditions made bowling very hard, but that a team with India's ambitions cannot hide behind them.

• "You don't shrug off any defeat. If you want to keep improving, you don't want to put anything under the carpet."
• "We are a world-champion team, so we want to keep improving."
• "These are obviously tough conditions to bowl. We know flat wickets with the dew, obviously it's tough, but we need to figure it out and find the way."
• "The bottom line is that we could not defend 250. They batted extremely well. They deserved to win, and we still have a lot of work to do."

That last line matters. India had West Indies at 5 for 2 after the first over and 58 for 3 inside six. Gambhir pointed to that start himself, saying India needed to find a way to stop the opposition "especially when they lost two wickets in the first over, and three in the first six". From there, Shai Hope and Sherfane Rutherford added 120 for the fourth wicket and took the game away.

Credit to Hope and Rutherford

Gambhir did not take anything away from West Indies. Hope made 102 not out off 45 balls, and Rutherford hit 84 off 37.

"Credit to West Indies, the way Shai Hope batted," he said. "We know that they are world-class batters, especially in this format, so obviously it was tough. But we're going to keep improving."

He also made the point that India will face more nights like this one. "When you're playing against dangerous teams like the West Indies, we need to figure out how to defend, especially when you lose the toss," he said. India batted first in Ranchi, which meant their bowlers were the ones who had to grip a wet ball in the second innings.

Not the first time: Guwahati and the 406 chase

This was not a one-off complaint. Ten days ago, after the second ODI in Guwahati, Gambhir said much the same thing, and that was on a night India won.

West Indies made 405 for 7 in that game, with hundreds from John Campbell, Shai Hope and Amir Jangoo. India chased it down with eight wickets and six and a half overs to spare, thanks to Shubman Gill's 223 not out and Rohit Sharma's 101. It was India's highest successful ODI chase, and Gambhir still was not happy with the pitch.

"This is not cricket, this is only batting," he told Star Sports, according to reports. He called for "a bit more contest between bat and ball", said "it's not fair for the bowlers", and added: "If you get too hard just looking at their analysis, then we will never be able to develop bowlers."

Put the two comments side by side and the argument is clear. Gambhir is not saying India lost in Ranchi because of the pitch. He is saying that pitches like Guwahati and Ranchi make it almost impossible to judge, or build, a bowling attack. Across the three-match ODI series, India conceded 1,052 runs. In Ranchi, India's bowlers other than Mayank Yadav went for 216 runs in 15.3 overs.

Backing Mayank, and Dube at No. 4

Gambhir also backed the one bowler who did hurt West Indies. Mayank Yadav took three wickets in his three overs, bowled at close to 150 kph and knocked over Rovman Powell's off stump. Gambhir said he wanted Mayank to keep trusting his pace rather than relying on variations, and to keep bowling like a fast bowler.

He was asked, too, about Shivam Dube batting at No. 4 ahead of captain Shreyas Iyer. India scored only 39 runs between the 12th and 16th overs, which is why the move was questioned. Gambhir did not budge.

"This is international cricket; sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn't," he said. "And more importantly, we've always been flexible with our batting lineup, and we'll continue with it. I've said in T20 cricket only the openers are fixed."

Is he right?

On the numbers, Gambhir has a case. Ranchi's previous highest T20I total was 196. On Friday, both teams went past 249. Guwahati produced 813 runs in an ODI. When almost every ball that is slightly off its length goes for four or six, it becomes very hard to tell a good spell from a bad one, and that is exactly the problem he described when he talked about bowlers' careers.

There is another side to it. West Indies bowled on the same pitch and in the same dew, and India still made 249. Teams know what Indian venues produce in October, and India picked an XI with two specialist spinners and Ravi Bishnoi on the bench. Gambhir seemed to accept this himself. He kept coming back to the same idea: the conditions are hard, but India have to find a way.

What he has done is put the subject on the table in the middle of a series. Pitches in India are prepared by the state associations, under BCCI guidelines, and a head coach asking publicly for more help for bowlers is not a small thing. Whether the next surfaces change is another question.

What comes next

The third T20I is in Indore on Sunday, 11 October, at 7 PM IST. The Holkar Stadium is one of the smallest grounds in India and has a history of high scores, so Gambhir's bowlers are unlikely to get the even contest he asked for. How India plan for it, and whether Bishnoi comes in or Mayank gets all four overs, will show whether they have found the way he talked about.

Follow the 3rd T20I live on TryBall: toss, playing XIs, live score and where to watch.