What happened today at Westpac Trust Park was high farce masquerading as Test cricket. You knew something wasn't right when you needed to peer really hard to find out where the pitch ended and the grass began. If that patch of 22 yards is a Test match-standard pitch, then so is the cabbage patch down the road. But India, having put the capital F in farce as far back as the late 1950s, have no moral right to complain. Any country that has produced pitches where spinners came on to bowl as early as the tenth over – getting the ball to turn square right away – has no choice to but swallow indignation and get on with it when confronted with a spiteful surface such as this. Batting is hard enough in New Zealand's atmospheric conditions, with the ball prone to swing. Add to that trampoline-like bounce and vicious movement off the seam and you had a cocktail that even two of the world's most accomplished batsmen couldn't swallow.

When someone like Daryl Tuffey – a fine, disciplined seam bowler, but no world-beater – could boast of figures that read 6-6-0-2 at one stage, against batsmen of the quality of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, it was easy to imagine being back in India, where buffet spin bowlers – to use Geoffrey Boycott's less scathing assessment of Nicky Boje – have picked up five-fors and more on designer turners. New Zealand have one of the world's best spinners in their eleven but as things stand, he will rarely get a bowl in home conditions. In their own way, their priorities are as hopelessly skewed as India's.

There will be multiple columns in the Indian media tomorrow taking aim at the "unfair" pitch. But perhaps it's time we tried to define fairness. A surface such as the one at Bourda in Georgetown, Guyana, is as much a disgrace as this one, in that any Ordinary Joe batsman can make runs. The same could be said of any number of pitches in India. Somehow, we're always more forgiving of surfaces where the batsmen make a small mountain of runs and the fast bowlers get nothing but sore backs. The moment the ball starts darting around, the whiners are out in force.

In effect, any surface that rewards mediocrity is an unfair one. In the recent past, we have seen runs and wickets (for slow bowlers) come far too cheaply in Indian conditions. And on the evidence of this and other recent tours to New Zealand, wickets come too easily for anyone but the quick bowlers' liking. That might help to explain why both teams are so vulnerable in conditions that don't resemble those found at home sweet home. India found that to be the case even at home last winter, when they were clearly second-best to England on a lively pitch at Bangalore.

The only solution is to have some sort of ICC guideline which the host associations have to follow. If surfaces that turn square from the first hour are to be outlawed, so should this pathetic strip in Hamilton. The gold standard could be the almost-perfect pitch at the `Gabba in Brisbane. The best fast bowlers have always enjoyed themselves there, as has the world's best spinner – and no, he's not Sri Lankan. And there have always been runs to be had for quality batsmen – as opposed to flat-truck bullies.

India didn't do themselves any favours today either. Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman were once again out to horrendous shots. India have a fitness trainer and are soon to get a bowling coach, but on this evidence, a ballet lesson on two should be the greater priority. Ganguly and Laxman don't have footwork, they suffer from foot-laziness. And as long as that's the case, they will never make runs in testing conditions.

Harbhajan Singh, who used his bat like Jim Courier once did his tennis racquet, was India's second-highest scorer with 20. That said it all really, on a day which did Test cricket no favours at all. India lost the toss, and appear to be well on the way to another defeat. It's perverse that the spin of a coin should have such an impact on a match. But two countries that have thrived in unfair conditions can scarcely complain.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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