India completed a stunning comeback in the four-match Test series against England. After losing the first Test by 227 runs, India have won the next matches comfortably. England batsmen have looked clueless against the guile of R Ashwin and Axar Patel. Both the Indian spinners have bamboozled the visitors with their accuracy on spinning tracks in Chennai and Ahmedabad. England batsmen haven’t managed to reach even 200 runs in four innings against India in the last two Tests.However, there has been constant criticism levelled at the pitches by some former cricketers. It has been argued that the state of pitches in Chennai and Ahmedabad were not good enough for Test cricket. Former England captains Michael Vaughan, Kevin Pietersen, and Alastair Cook have spoken against the surface at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
Even though the match finished inside 2 days, former England batsman Sir Geoffrey Boycott has defended the pitch as maintained that no rule states about the kind of pitch a cricketing nation should prepare.
“There is nothing in the rules that says what type of pitch should be prepared. We had first choice of the surface and they were better than us. Simple,” Boycott said while responding to a tweet.
Vaughan on the other hand maintained that the pitch in Motera was an awful one for Test cricket.
“Entertaining .. YES .. but this is a awful pitch for Test cricket .. !!!! Complete lottery on day 2 ,” Vaughan said in a tweet.
Vaughan continued his rant against the pitches in India saying that teams should get 3 innings if we are going to see pitches like these.
“If we are going to see these pitches … I have an answer to how it could work … Give the Teams 3 innings.”
Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma responded to the criticism by saying that batsmen should look to score runs on turning pitches.
“When you are playing on a pitch like that, you need to have an intent and look to score runs as well. You can’t just keep blocking,” Rohit said during the virtual conference after the match on Thursday
You just need to be slightly ahead at times and try and find ways to score runs. My intent was not just to survive but try and score runs as well, while respecting the good balls. That’s all I tried to do.
“The pitch was an interesting one and odd ball was just coming in and some were taking turns. On a track like this, you need to have a clear mindset, which I think I did until I played that sweep shot.
