Home advantage is vital

There has been a lot of debate regarding the track given at Green Park, but I personally feel India deserve all the credit for levelling the series against South Africa and also retaining the second spot in Test rankings in the ICC Test Championship table.

After the defeat in three days at Motera, nothing was going right for the Indians. Their most experienced spinner and captain was declared unfit on the morning of the Kanpur Test and even the all important toss went the South African way. At one stage on the first day, South Africa were sitting pretty at 152 for one and after that, the Indians led by their new captain Dhoni, came back strongly with a lot of grit and determination.

The bowlers started to function as a unit, Dada once again showed his true class, while Ishant and Sreesanth added those invaluable forty six runs for the last wicket which proved the turning point in the end.

We have got to realize that when you are playing at home you should be playing to your strength and not the opposition's strength as it happened in Motera.

The spinning track in Kanpur did the trick for India. If you have to prepare seaming tracks then they have to be done from the grass root level i.e.under-15 level. I remember playing a lot of first-class cricket early in my career for Punjab at Ludhiana before the Mohali Stadium was constructed.

It was difficult to differentiate the outfield from the pitch and I vividly remember batsmen of top quality in the domestic circuit struggle in Ludhiana in big games like the Ranji final and the Irani Trophy.

In comparison, the same batsman played with a lot of ease on the turning tracks and got big hundreds. This was because from childhood they were groomed to play on turning tracks rather than seaming wickets and their technique was more adept to play turn.

Adjusting to the movement and swing was not at all easy. For most batsman had a torrid time and the seamers really had a gala time. This was the same time when Bhupinder Singh (current national selector) picked up loads of wickets for Punjab with his nagging line and length and thereafter played for India in One-Dayers.

It is therefore imperative to play to your strength and it was the correct decision to give a track like the one in Kanpur, specially after the defeat in Ahemdabad. I can never imagine New Zealand, England or South Africa prepare turning tracks against India in a home series.

The BCCI now is doing a good job by providing seaming wickets at the domestic level like we saw in the Duleep Trophy final this year.

In times to come, we all hope that Indian batsman will be better equipped to handle fast bowlers in seaming conditions and Motera won't be repeated.