India embark on bumper home season There''s no place like home if you are looking to scramble back to the top of the world rankings and that appears to be India''s mantra as they kick off a bumper test season against New Zealand in Kanpur on Thursday.The world''s richest cricket board has long been accused of ignoring the game''s longest format, a wrong they decided to right in June by scheduling a whopping 13 tests in the 2016-17 calendar.
All of them being on home soil, also dovetailed perfectly with India''s ambition to regain the top test team''s billing.
They had grudgingly handed over the honour of top test team to arch-rivals Pakistan following a washed-out test in the West Indies.
New Zealand will bear the brunt of it as Kane Williamson''s men prepare for a trial by spin over the next three weeks from the world''s number two test team in their three-match series.
Making India the top test team was one of the key goals listed in Anil Kumble''s presentation before he landed the head coach''s job but the former spinner has said he is not someone who would call up the curator and order a dustbowl to achieve the target.
"No, it is the job of the curator," Kumble told ESPNcricinfo in a recent interview.
"It is a given that home conditions will favour the home team where spin is a dominant force, but not where (from) the first ball you have dust coming off."
It did exactly so when they hosted South Africa in their last home series, a four-test rubber, last year.
Ravichandran Ashwin and his spin partners wreaked havoc on raging turners and the Proteas managed to take a test into the fifth day only once, that too after a record-shattering stonewalling by Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Faf Du Plessis in Delhi.
"It''s a tough place to play, particularly in recent years," Williamson said on his arrival in India.
"The pitches have been very tricky and you throw in world class spinners, the challenge is very tough."
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