I do not understand why there is such hue and cry about the Chennai pitch. Did the England and Wales Cricket Board not prepare the pitch according to their team’s strength? They are preparing their pitches to suit their bowlers. Australia and South Africa also do the same thing. But here it is more important to focus on your game than to complain about pitches.
The Chennai pitch was difficult for the batsmen but not dangerous. The same type of pitches is seen in different parts of India. The truth is that on the pitch of the first cricket Test, there were a lot of runs. Many wickets also fell. The truth is that the Indian bowling disappointed us there. We didn’t bowl really well. But such comments are usually made after facing defeat. These comments are obvious because England lost in the second Test. While writing all this I could not justify this pitch completely but the truth is that such pitches are being made.
You will remember that the ICC also intervened about the pitch in the Test against South Africa in Kanpur in 2008. That pitch was really dangerous. It was really difficult to bat on that, whereas in the first cricket Test, the pitch was flat on the first two days. If our bowlers had bowled well there, England could not have scored so high. Secondly, the choice of our bowlers was also not correct. I was not worried when Shahbaz Nadeem was included in the first Test. He bowled well in the Ranchi Test against South Africa but it was not at all justified to include Washington Sundar with his batting prowess, especially when the second off-spinner R. Ashwin was already in the team. The leg spinner should have been included.
It has now been decided that the team management does not trust Kuldeep Yadav. It was great to see Ravichandran Ashwin’s batting. His batting made me feel as if he is proving to his captain that he is not a number eight batsman. After all, why is he even driven down the batting order after a debutant Akshar Patel? Not only this, he wanted to tell through his performance that he can also score a century after taking five wickets in the first innings—which also proves that it is not such a bad pitch, not one which cannot be batted on.
The writer is a former Indian cricket player. He played 35 Tests and 59 ODI matches, and is a cricket expert currently.