India aggressive on the field but defensive off it

India have won a Test series against the best side in the world. They have ended South Africa's unbeaten away streak of nine years, they should be celebrating, there should be confetti around them, but what we have is an ICC rebuke on one of the pitches and general reluctance to see this series win as an extraordinary achievement. Virat Kohli is simmering. Ravi Shastri is letting out battle cries such as "to hell with the five days".

It makes you wonder if anybody in that set-up has even tried to introspect why pitches have suddenly become such a big issue. Their reaction to the ICC assessment has been to stick their heads further in the sand. Nobody wants to talk about the real issue, which is the quality of the Nagpur pitch where the amount and direction of the turn, the bounce, and the pace off the pitch varied for similar deliveries. Every day a new Test is paraded as a comparison. You don't even have to ask them about the pitches. It's almost like there is a tape in their pockets that starts playing the moment words "challenge" or "spin" or "variations" are uttered.

Two days before the Delhi Test, somebody asked Amit Mishra how challenging it can be for the batsmen when spinners are bowling so well. You can imagine a hand went inside the pocket and pressed play. "We also get seaming pitches when we go out of India," Mishra said. "We also adjust. We don't complain. They need to adjust."

On the second day of the Nagpur Test, when R Ashwin famously brought up Nottingham as an example, the question actually was how it felt when he, a skilled and thinking bowler who likes to work batsmen out, was only about as threatening as other lesser-skilled spinners in the series. In Indian press conferences, you are not allowed to say, "Excuse me, but you haven't answered my question." Because when you try to do that, the media manager butts in with words to the effect of, "He has said what he had to say."

This year the policy has extended to even Daljit Singh, the usually affable Mohali curator. He is known around the world for taking journalists next to the pitch on the eve of the Test, and explaining to them how the pitch is likely to behave and the nuances of why the pitch is expected to behave in such a way. This year he cordoned off the whole square, spoke shiftily about the pitch, and when asked when the pitch was watered last, he said something to the effect of: so you want to learn everything about making pitches in one Test? The question remained unanswered.

Straight off the bat, India have played victim, controlling the message, refusing to answer direct questions and comparing these Tests with whatever seems convenient to them. Somewhere along the line, through sheer repetition, it has also become an undisputable fact that Australia beat India 4-0 in 2011-12 on demonic green tops. And since you can't tell them this in person, here are a few comparisons that might be relevant.

In 2013-14, India beat West Indies in two Tests that offered five days worth of cricket put together. Nobody said a word about the pitches. Because the pitches gave the batsmen a chance. Oh it's just poor West Indies? Let's go to the Tests India hosted before that. India whitewashed Australia. Even though the Chennai curator was quoted in the Indian Express saying he had selectively watered parts of the pitch, nobody complained about the pitches because they gave the batsmen a chance. Only one Test ended in three days, and it was good for variety. It is wearying to watch these Tests on the loop, which is what India have sought to do in the current series.

It is self-defeating to bring Adelaide in here, which - believe it or not - Kohli has done. This was a first day-night Test. There was some extra grass to make sure the pink ball didn't get scuffed up, and the ball began to move more under lights because of the atmospherics and not because of the pitch. There is so much to like about Kohli's team, the vigour, the aggression, the renewed focus on bowlers, the selflessness of putting extra pressure on himself by playing just five batsmen, but Kohli has to realise the world doesn't hate the Indian cricket team. If it did, the pitches would have been brought up when they beat West Indies and Australia too. Right now we are talking about ICC rating a surface "poor". Ian Gould, Bruce Oxenford and Jeff Crowe don't hate the Indian team. Harsha Bhogle, who had asked for a better contest between bat and ball, doesn't hate the Indian team.

As a strategy the pitch in Mohali was sound. India had seen the kind of damage the South African batsmen were causing in the ODIs, and they felt it was worth risking letting their spinners into the game if they could rule out a scenario where they lose the toss, concede 550, and start batting under the scoreboard pressure in the dying minutes of the second day. The execution in Mohali in that regard was a work of genius: a vast real estate on the pitch was lifeless while good-length areas on either end were scuffed up. That pitch was a borderline case, but India's job was done: they had placed demons in the visitors' minds, and we had a three-day finish beyond which it becomes boring to watch every ball misbehave.

India didn't stop. They took the short cut. The thing with making dodgy pitches is, it is easy to do so but the line between a turning track and a poor one is very thin. All you do is stop watering and keep rolling, but you are likelier to go wrong when underpeparing a pitch than when doing your job normally. Nagpur crossed that line. At least in the view of those officiating in the match. Now Shastri is not talking.

Before this series began Shastri made a comparison with the great series against Australia in 2000-01. Harbhajan Singh became a legend by bowling beautifully and taking 32 wickets in three Tests. He had to work hard for those wickets on normal Indian pitches. Ashwin is bowling beautifully too, he is in the form of his life, the way the ball is drifting away late from the right-handed batsmen is delightful, but for his sake here is an example India might want to consider. In 2002-03, when India went to New Zealand, they encountered the seam bowlers' version of these conditions. Ashwin has so far taken 24 wickets at an average of 10.75. In two Tests in that series in New Zealand, Daryl Tuffey took 13 wickets at 8.69. Nobody talks about Tuffey's bowling and skills now, but articles are still being written about the pitches back then. Ten years down the line when they talk of the ending of South Africa's streak and the wickets Ashwin took in doing so, there will be a similar asterisk next to them. Ashwin has deserved better.