Cricket is one of the games which is affected by a lot of factors. Out of all the factors, the pitch is the most important one. Pitch can decide the fate of the game even before the match happens when the players are not skillful enough to tackle it with their technique. Classic case of the same was the 2021, where toss was the deciding factor for the game on most of the occasions. Sometimes, genuinely the pitch is poor to play the game, and on rest occasions when there is an outcry about pitch, it is just an excuse to hide the inability of the team to adapt the conditions.

Earlier, the game was balanced very well. With batters and bowlers getting equally good conditions to prove their mettle. Particularly, the bowler friendly wickets which are now hardly seen, were a common sight in the earlier days. And in spite of wickets of being too spin friendly or green tops, the batters were equipped with the relevant technique to tackle the threat of the opposition. Times have now changed, and the fast evolving smaller formats and batter friendly wickets have hampered the basics of batting. And when suddenly a bowler friendly wicket comes out of syllabus, the batters falter.

While batters faltering is a part of the game, blaming the wicket for inability to cope up with the bowling was never a part of this beautiful game. However, nowadays it is now becoming a inseparable part of the game, which is used as a weapon by some nations when they are unable to accept their flaws which led to their failure. And if a few nations are to be blamed for the same, then England, Australia and South Africa are the most prominent one's. And primarily these nations have an issue when it comes to Indian subcontinent wickets.

Selective outcry is a permanent English and Australian thing. If crying foul is an art, then the 2 Veto powers are the Picasso of it. When the 2021 Ahmedabad test match innings of England ended in 45 overs, flag bearers of pitch report Michael Vaughan described it as the worst ever pitch, because match ended soon, and also because batsman Joe Root got a five-wicket haul. But the same people didn't utter a word, when South Africa were rattled in just 22 overs in Cape Town, or when England were bundled in just 27 overs in Australia. How come a pitch where innings last for 27 overs be termed as a competitive Australian wicket, and a Indian pitch where innings lasted for 45 overs be termed as poor?

It's a question that has stopped baffling people like me now. And the South Africans might not be as aggressive as their English or Australian counterparts, but they are not saints either. Once Virat Kohli was in a press conference post a test victory against South Africa, when Virat mentioned the successful history of India against South Africa, a Protea journalist questioned the succes by asking of how many of them came in India? The question clearly implied that Indian victories are easy at home for Men in Blue and only what matters for them are the one's happening in their own country. If that's the case, why do you even come to play in the subcontinent?

And who gives the right to SENA countries except New Zealand to decide that the only matches played at their home conditions are the one's which matter. If they harness the home conditions to their advantage, making pitches aiding their bowlers, that's perfectly fine and won't be called as doctoring, but if it's done by anyone apart from their countries then they will be the first one's to call it as "doctored pitches". A simple way to avoid all this hassle is to play better, but it is way more difficult than to put the blame on conditions and wickets which their team can't play on. This thought process comes from the colonial mindset which still heavily exists in their minds, in spite of ending the colonialism decades earlier.

India has also faced some tough losses due to its their batters' inability to adapt in the conditions, or due to some technical flaws which led to their defeat. There were occasions when toss affected Indian victory, there have been instances of the team unable to put up a show against pace in Adelaide in 2021 or on many few occasions. There were also instances where the spin friendly Indian tracks have massively backfired on the team due to its own limited capabilities. But not a single time have the Indian players, or the fans blamed the nature of pitch for their defeat. And all these occasions the team has gracefully accepted their flaws and vowed to improve from their end, instead of blaming the pitch.

Pitch might be easy to play on at times, on occasions it might be really difficult, but the fact that both the teams play on the same wicket makes it equal. The only thing which decides victory and defeat is the abilities of players from the respective sides. And the side with better abilities taste success. There have been some occasions where the pitch truly was disastrous, like the Kotla wicket for India Srilanka match, or the Ashes 2013 Australian wicket where cracks in the pitch were visible from the moon. But on most of the occasions, the wickets are good, and players are not good enough. And hence, the hypocrisy of the SENA nations must stop. It's getting to the extent where an ice cool Rohit Sharma said that the Cape Town pitch where match ended soon was not an issue, and similarly Indian pitches should never be a topic of criticism or debate going ahead. The game of cricket is truly beautiful, and no one should let the demons of pitch and hypocrisy affect the beauty of it. Hopefully, someday it will happen.