India head coach Rahul Dravid made a frank admission on the recently-raised pitch conversation by former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly amid Jasprit Bumrah‘s haul of nine wickets in the second Test match against England in Visakhapatnam, saying that the team management never asks for a rank turners while playing at home in a bid to hold an advantage over visiting teams. Dravid further added that it has always been tough to predict how a particular pitch will behave over the course of five days in a Test match.
Some of the matches in the previous England series in 2021 and the contest against Australia in early 2023 were played in raging turners, resulting in games ending in just three days. However, in the ongoing series against Ben Stokes’ men, both the matches have gone till the fourth day.
The Vizag track was billed as a spinner’s paradise, but on a surface that remained flat throughout with nothing on offer, Bumrah dominated the show with a bowling figure of 9 for 91 – the best-ever by an Indian seamer against England in 40 years and his best show on home soil. The figure included a stunning six-wicket haul in the first innings, en route to which he became the fastest Indian bowler (in terms of balls bowled) to 150 wickets in the format.
It was during that sensational show on Saturday, when Ganguly urged BCCI to stop pondering over dishing out turners to hold an advantage over visiting teams when fast bowlers like Bumrah can inflict such damage.
Ganguly had tweeted: “When I see Bumrah Sami Siraj Mukesh bowl . I wonder why do we need to prepare turning tracks in india ..my conviction of playing on good wickets keeps getting stronger every game .. They will get 20 wickets on any surface with ashwin jadeja Kuldeep and axar .. batting quality dropping because of pitches in last 6 to 7 yrs at home ..good wickets are a must .. india will still win over 5 days…@bcci.”
On Monday, after India’s 106-run win against England where Bumrah was named the Player of the Match, Dravid was asked if more pitches like Vizag could be seen in the remaining three Tests of the series, and the former India captain revealed that the team management never demanded rank turners and that he was as clueless on the subject as anyone else.
“Curators make the pitches. We don’t ask for rank turners. Obviously tracks in India would spin, how much they’ll spin, how less they’ll spin, how much. I’m not an expert, obviously, wickets in India in the course of four or five days, they do turn but how much they’re going to turn. I sometimes get told they’ll turn on the third day, but they turn on the first day. Sometimes I get told they’ll turn on the second day and they don’t turn till day four,” Dravid said.
“So I’m sometimes as clueless as anybody else. We look at the wicket and we try and do the best we can on what we get. We go to Rajkot, we’ll see what we can get and play with whatever we get in front of.”
The third Test match will be played in Rajkot on February 15, where India will be aiming to take a lead after levelling the contest at 1-1.
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