Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], February 26 (ANI): England head coach Chris Silverwood on Friday said that his side expected the pitch in the third Test against India to hold on a little longer than it did at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
India had managed to defeat England within two days in the pink-ball Test. The match saw both India and England batsmen failing to shine and getting out to balls that didn’t turn and skidded through from the spinners.
“First and foremost, it’s just a follow-up from what Joe Root said yesterday, he got 5/8 yesterday but at the same time, whatever the pitch did or it didn’t do, India ultimately played better than us on that surface, probably they pushed us to the extremes which our players haven’t experienced before,” said Silverwood in a virtual press conference on Friday.
When asked about whether England would be talking to the ICC about the pitch used in the third Test, Silverwood replied: “Listen, we will be talking about certain things behind the scenes. But at the same time, we were really disappointed that we lost with three days of cricket left. We are where we are, from my point of view, it’s about heading into the next game and coming out fighting.”
“We have spoken to Javagal (match referee), but it was not about the pitch. I think Joe and I need to have discussions about it really and see where we go from there. We have to accept that we need to get better on these pitches. You look at the first innings, we had an opportunity to score runs and make the best use of the pitch,” he added.
England had opted to go in with just one spinner — Jack Leach — in the third Test. Root, who is normally a part-timer, picked his maiden fifer and Silverwood cited this performance to say that the visitors did not make a mistake in team selection.
“Joe Root got 5/8 so the second spinner did fine for us. We did expect the wicket to hold up a little longer than it did. Looking back in history in pink-ball Tests, the ball swung for us, Jimmy and all got movement during practice. With the experience we had and having two of our bowlers in the top ten in the rankings, we felt with this pink ball, it would have been an opportunity for seamers to make an impact for us.
“It’s not that we did not think about it, there was logic, we had a look at the stats and how we can use pink ball the best. Root works very hard on his bowling, I am always saying to him that he always under bowls himself. But Joe being Joe, he had to do it this time and he got 5/8,” Silverwood said.
When asked about what type of pitch he would like in the fourth Test, Silverwood said: “I would like the pitch in the fourth Test to be a fit flatter, it would suit our gameplan. Yeah, I would like it to be flatter, but we will see what the wicket looks like in the coming days and we will take it from there really.”
After both teams failed to shine in their first innings, England was bowled out for 81 in the second essay, setting India a target of just 49. The hosts chased down the total with ten wickets in hand to go 2-1 up in the series. There has been a lot of debate around the pitch once again, but India batsman Rohit Sharma clarified that he did not think the pitch had any demons.
Even skipper Virat Kohli was vocal about the dreadful batting display from the two teams. Kohli said the quality of batting was to be blamed as most of the batsmen got out to balls that didn’t turn. (ANI)
