Is this hypocrisy--S.Waugh to Dhoni on his pitch ask--If u r looking to be d best u got play in all conditions?

The Waugh Speech:

http://cricket.yahoo.com/news/dhoni-comments-were-...

And more on the background of what prompted Waugh's remarks

http://cricket.yahoo.com/news/dhoni-slams-motera-w...

As much as I agree that Waugh is being hypocritical, I can't condone Dhoni's comments. The Motera pitch was a good one, & held up for five days of a test match, something we don't associate with Sub continental pitch that often.

Let me address your points first:

1. Even though, Dhoni can't force a curator to prepare the pitch to his likings, but he could indirectly influence what kind of track is being prepared. But there is so much a curator can do, and still the pitch could behave differently.

2. Waugh considers India as the best test team? India is not even in the top 3 ranking currently, and had a forgettable England tour, and to hear him say 'to be the BEST you have to play in all conditions' is heartwarming. Let me remind you Mr Waugh, that you yourself had considered India as your last frontier, and most people considered your team as the best then and you still had only one win in India and lost two. (Record in the Subcontinent is 6 tests, 1 win, 3 losses, 2 draws). To be the best, you have to play (and succeed) in all conditions, eh? Where was your logic hiding then? And you nearly lost a home series (your farewell test series) to India, but hung on by the skin of your teeth to draw the last match of the series, (where you played a gritty role in your last match to save the test).

3. Climatic conditions play a role, so does the preparation of pitches. But pitches shouldn't be prepared to support batsmen or bowler excessively and both teams should get an equal opportunity, not just the team who wins the toss.

4. And fast bowlers are admired for hurling the ball at 150 kmph, but the experts tend to give more attention to spinning tracks than spin bowlers when they do well.

5. The point is, the certain players can't play spinners all that well. It's more to do with their domestic cricket setup, as there are a very few good spinners around. To hide the fact that they are inept at playing spin, they introduced the term 'flat track bullies' to refer to sub continental batsmen. (Graeme Swann is considered as a better spinner than India's spin duo of Ashwin & Ojha, and Swann bowled well. Since Indian batsmen are better at playing spin, they could negotiate Swann's bowling in a better manner. And Samit's supporting role was less than impressive).

6. Don't you think test cricket will become even more monotonous if there are only fast tracks all around the world? Shouldn't a test player excel in all conditions and against all kind of bowling? Why should everything be that easy? Accept the challenge of playing in unfavourable conditions and move on.

7. If the pitch is fit to play, and there are no demons in the track, ICC shouldn't listen to whining of any team. The quality of the pitch should be good throughout the 5 days, and the bounce should be fairly consistent. Give credit to the bowler when he is doing well. Not all spin bowlers do well in sub continental tracks.

8. Hypocrisy or short term memory loss, it just doesn't bode well for someone who considered as one of the best captains in the entire history of cricket, and helped create a robust Australia team.

My View:

Steve Waugh said an unpleasant truth, and even though he didn't show enough foresight to think that it applies to teams outside the sub continent. But, Dhoni criticizing the pitch, despite it being a good one, is unacceptable. A rank turner is definitely not a good news for England, and will be advantageous to Indians. Asking for track that turns from day one, is nothing about neutralizing the effect the toss could have on the result, it's about increasing the advantage of the home team. My feeling is that, Dhoni is still sour about 4-0 drubbing administered by England and he is desperate to give it back. Revenge has probably clouded Dhoni's reasoning. I don't approve of that outburst.

India needs to groom more quality fast bowlers so that they have to excel in foreign conditions. and non-sub continental teams have to groom quality spinners so that they can do well in the Sub continent. So, Waugh should not have mentioned 'doctoring pitches'. Playing on ALL conditions is applicable to England, Australia, and the other non-sub continental teams, not just India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

I agree with Steve Waugh partially that To Be The Best A Team Needs To Win In All Types Of Conditions.I agree with him on that point.But I don't think there is anything wrong with taking Advantage of Home Conditions and exploit the Best out of It.We know that Our (India's) Strength is Spin and as I said there is nothing wrong by asking for Spinning tracks to work on our Strength and the Opposition's Weakness.I even asked the Same type of Question Few days ago-http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201...

We accepted our Loss during the Australia and England Tours as winning and losing is the Part of the Game.The Foreign Teams like Australia,England,New Zealand face difficulties against Spin.England Team's weakness was revealed to the World in the First Test at Ahmadabad.As I knew the Ahmadabad Pitch was a "Sporting Track" because I remember during South Africa's Tour of India Dale Steyn's Storm that blew away team India's Batting Line up.Dhoni had that in the back of his mind and did what benefited India and there is nothing wrong about it.England and Australia too take their "Home Advantage" when Sub-Continental Teams tour their country.That is what Home Teams do.During Sri Lanka's Tour of India,I remember that Delhi's Pitch had some "Uneven" Bounce and it looked like Perth's Track but with that little Bouncy Track Sri Lanka abandoned the match and their was a lot of Controversy.Whenever we see a "Sporting Track" in India we say that it is a "Bad" Track for play as it could injury someone.

Now talking about Waugh's comments,I think Cricket Fans are taking Steve Waugh's comments in an indirect manner.He said that being the Best means that a team can Play and Win in any given Environment and I agree with that.He is just stating the Truth and all the Cricketing Teams should take a Lesson from it and just learn to play the Game in any sort of Track.It will also be good for the Game.That is what Being The Best Is.

I think this is a classic debate we have had many times. Like many answerers, I partially agree with Steve calling that to be the best you have to play well in all conditions. But the question arises is then which team can we refer as the best?

Even if you take the all time best Australian team, they have failed to win a test series in India for several decades now. So no team can be called as the best if you go by Steve's assumption.

So let me get this straight.

Any country has the right to prepare type of pitches which suit their strengths and tactics. No one can question that unless the pitch is like something deadly dangerous to bat on. You can use any words like doctoring, square turners or anything. But the fact of the matter is every country has the right to do it.within ICC regulations. It is called the home field advantage.

@Joeblow, how can you assure that it is the same pitch used for the previous game? It can be a different pitch on the same ground. SL made 146/3 in 32 overs on that pitch. Did that really sound a strange score card?

No one questions green carpets. In fact I love to see my team playing on them hoping they'd be up for the challenge.

We all need to grow up and stop questioning and complaining about the conditions.

That's it. End of story.

What Steve Waugh would be talking about would be the doctoring of wickets to go against what the touring team plays on unless the series is against teams with similar strengths I.e. Sri Lanka, Pakistan and to a lesser extent Bangladesh. When those teams tour the pitches are flat as an airport runway, but then when any non sub continent team tours the pitches suddenly turn in to sharp turners. Tis is despite the fact the Indian bowling attack has been the same with primarily good spin bowlers for a long time. India is now getting a few decent pace bowlers like Zaheer, Ishant Sharma and Yadav, but still they have a lot more good spin options. If they just constantly had sharp turners then people would not have a problem as it is normal, but when it varies for individual teams people have issues. It is not just India who does this as it happened in the World Cup in some matches in Sri Lanka. I can recall one match at Colombo in the last World Cup co hosted where the pitch was fairly true one day when it involved Sri Lanka and a team who had similar conditns, but then the very next day when a match was played involving Australia you could see the pitch had a lot of mess on the top with a thin layer of what appeared like dried mud which made it crumble to become a turner early in the match.

As for climatic conditions being the reason behind the pitches being that way, that is not accurate. If that was the case, places like the West Indies would also have sharp turners as they have hot weather year round much like India and the sub continent does. Fact is the pitches in the West Indies differ a fair bit some are like Australia, some are like Indian wickets when a sub continent team tours and some are a bit slow that don't turn much. In Australia since the days cricket started the SCG has been spin friendly. Since day one the WACA ground has been bouncy. Since day one Adelaide has been flat and very hard to get a result before day 5 with large first innings scores generally got. the GABBA ground has been a pacers pitch since day one. The other wickets have also had similar things. Same thing in England, South Africa and New Zealand. It doesn't matter if it is South Africa who has an awesome pace attack, India who has a mediocre one, West Indies or Pakistan who have generally had a good pace attack or Sri Lanka who has generally had a bit of an average pace attack, the wickets remain the same. None of this bouncy for teams not comfortable in those conditions or turning to those who are more comfortable in pacey ones. Sunil Gavaskar could have told Virat Kohli what all the wickets last summer would have done before they even saw the pitches.

Of course Australia and England need to play good on all conditions. Historically Australia has played pretty well in all countries. India has always been a tough place, but Australia has won World cricket tournaments there and has also put up good performances and won the occasional test series here. The current lot of Australian batsman other than Clarke, Hussey, and to a lesser extent Ponting can play spin well. Ponting may no have a great record in India, but if you were to scrap the pathetic effort in his first couple of series there, it has been not too bad. His record agains the Indian spinners in the same conditions Warne got a lot of his 700+ test wickets in is fantastic. A number of his highest test scores including his highest one are against India who have normally had good spinners.

As for spin not being able to cause bodily harm, I am not sure if it was spin or slow/medium pace, but Mark Boucher might beg to differ with a career ending injury that happened as a result of a bail coming off and hitting him in the eye. Plenty of other wicket keepers would also beg to differ from having received broken fingers from getting the ball at the wrong part of the fingers from a spin bowler. Sure pace bowlers are responsible for far more injuries than spinners, but this is the case regardless whether the conditions are favourable to spin or pace with the pitch.

Before my take on Steve Waugh's comments i would like to place my views on Dhoni's insistence of having turning pitches from day 1.Now,whatever he is said has something right as well as wrong.

Right factor

1)He said pitches should start taking turn early so that the toss doesn't become crucial.Fair enough if a team batting first pile up runs and if it starts turning from the second or third day onwards it becomes an undue advantage for the team batting first even if it means its the home team is batting first.

2)It would provide to an early ending within three or four days but gives equal opportunities for both teams to win taking toss out of equation.

3)Like every home team,he is entitled to say his opinion on the type of pitch he wants.

Now Wrong factor

1)A Test match is a battle of skills,so it would've been better had he said that he would like a wicket which helps the spinners as well as touch quick when ball is pitched so that it doesn't neutralizes the spin but MS Dhoni goes on to state that he wants rank turners from day one which might produce a result but a quality good cricket match would be out of question.Remember the India-Australia test match in Mumbai of very low scores.It would be totally inappropriate to expect the pitch to be dust bowl so as to obtain a result quickly.

2)MS Dhoni's say also might bring about an argument that when there is nothing in the wicket Indian spinners or pacers or incapable of picking up wickets.World Class bowlers should be able to pick wickets on any condition whether flat,spinning or seaming tracks.Kumble used to bowl tirelessly on flat tracks with great heart and pick wickets even when the pitch is not helping him.

3)We did have a win after 5 days so it was an exciting game of Cricket that produced a result.I don't see why he has to blame the pitch.Bowlers had to toil hard to get wickets in second innings fair but that's why they are bowlers.The English batsman put up better performance in the second innings.

We lost in Eng and Aus because we played Poorly not just because of seaming conditions,Yes the conditions were difficult but nothing to be alarmed about.I dont think even Perth the fastest pitch on planet is quick these days and has evened out and playing a little flat.

As far as Steve Waugh comments are concerned I agree with his views and I think it applies to all the teams in the world.I dont see any team except SA currently has players for all conditions.

I agree that the best teams learn and adapt to play well in all conditions. Mastering what you're not used to is what separates the good teams from the great ones.

Nice one there godfather, we know Australia will be touring here in mid January and will be up against these spin duo and square turners as usual.

But I partially agree with Waugh's statement that to be the best you need to succeed in all conditions but the home captain have every right to get what he want. There is nothing more thrilling and thumping than beating a team with home conditions having an advantage over you. This is something that we haven't seen happening of recent times.

I read the article where he mentioned that he never had a word a with the curators in and out of Australia regarding the Conditons of the pitch rather he backed the players performance to win the games and unsurprisingly he stands the best test captain in the world and Dhoni and future captains of India could take a leaf out of his book or may be the entire itself.

He is right in saying that the teams need to be able t play in all conditions but he can by no means criticize the local captains for asking to prepare spinning tracks. Why do Australia prepare bouncy tracks when the sub continent teams visit them? Why can't they play spin properly? With an average of 20 something in India, Ponting probably doesn't deserve to be in the top 20 list of batsmen while our batsmen have shown that they can play in overseas conditions too.

Would be interesting to see the article, but at face value what he says is essentially correct. You do have to be able to play in all conditions to be number one. Common sense, yes?

I assume he wasn't saying prepare bouncy tracks for the England tests? That would be unrealistic as all sides deliver the wickets they are comfortable with. If he's suggesting to prepare some domestic wickets to practice pace on, it's probably a sensible suggestion.

Bit hard to comment more without the article to put his comments in context.

all i would say is his opinions doesn't matter to me

GO HOME STEVE WAUGH

YOU ARE DRUNK!!