India have come back after losing the 1st Test Match against England to win the series 3-1 subsequently qualifying for the World Test Championship final. But there was something that got more attention in the series than the cricket played.
In the 3rd Test Match between India and England, the hosts managed to win the match in less than two days by 10 wickets after having to chase a mere 49 runs in the 4th innings.
Many experts and players including former England captains Andrew Strauss, Alistair Cook and Micheal Vaughan blamed the BCCI and the pitch curators for the 'Bad Pitch' at the Narendra Modi Stadium saying that the pitch was the reason the 5-day pink ball match got over in less than 2 days because it did too much help to the spinners from the very first ball. Spinners took 28 out of the 30 wickets that fell in the match. England captain and part-time off-spinner Joe root took a five-wicket haul in the first innings. Root in the post-match press conference said that him getting a five-wicket haul sums up the pitch.
Check out the tweet here: Micheal Vaughan Tweet
Yuvraj Singh claimed that a wicket where a Match gets wrapped up in less than 2 days is not good for Test Cricket- Yuvraj Singh Tweet
Local star Axar Patel picked up 11 wickets while Ravichandran Ashwin got 7 wickets. Yuvraj Singh claimed that Former Indian spinners Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble would have got a lot more wickets than they did if they bowled on these kinds of pitches.
Fans were quick to disagree with the former All-Rounder, one fan replied "Maybe it's not so much the pitch but just abysmal batting on display by both sides. I'm pretty sure the pitch in the 2nd Test was worse than this. And ask yourself. If England had players like Bell and KP and India had Dravid, Laxman playing would the scores have been the same?".
One thing Commentators Ajit Agarkar and Murli Karthik observed was that the balls that did not turn were the ones that got the wickets. Sunil Gavaskar claimed that the overtly defensive mind of the batsmen was responsible for their dismissals and not the pitch.
Contradicting Yuvraj Singh's claim it is not as if Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble never played on rank turners. Ashwin has a better average than both Harbhajan and Kumble overseas where the conditions are usually less friendly for spinners.
Indian captain Virat Kohli claimed that the batting from both sides was not up to the standards at all.
Kevin Pietersen also stated that "I hope there are some England batters waking up this morning and being honest with themselves at least, by acknowledging their batting was dreadful on that wicket?! I’ve heard Virat & Rohit say theirs was!"
England legend Sir Geoffrey Boycott also said that the ICC rules do not state how the pitch should be. So England has to accept that their batting was not good even after they won the toss.
