Indian captain Rohit Sharma addressed the media ahead of the third Test against Australia, starting from Wednesday (March 1) in Indore. India lead the series 2-0 and a win here will not only win them the series but also confirm their spot in the World Test Championship final. The hosts have already retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy irrespective of what happens in the remaining two matches.
During his pre-match press conference, Rohit expressed his thoughts when asked whether India should have a fixed number of Test venues at home, something like in England and Australia.
Incidentally, former captain Virat Kohli had gone on record saying that there should be only five Test centres, which would also mean the visiting teams will know the kind of pitches they will have to play on and what sort of crowd will be in attendance.
“We've been discussing this for a long time now, and in my opinion, we should have five Test centres, period. I mean, I agree (with) state associations and rotation and giving games and all that, that is fine for T20 and one-day cricket, but Test cricket, teams coming to India should know, 'we're going to play at these five centres, these are the pitches we're going to expect, these are the kind of people that will come to watch, crowds',” Kohli had said.
However, Rohit did not concur with Kohli's idea, as he feels more venues help in spreading the popularity of Test cricket across the country.
“If you want to promote Test cricket, it should be played in every part of the country and not restrict it to just a handful of big centres. I'm pretty pleased that Test cricket is being played in placed like Dharamshala and Indore. I am just happy that we have been able to take cricket to all parts of the country,” Rohit said.
Rohit also believes that the big centres don't necessarily attract huge crowd for Test matches.
“All the Test centres we have played in since COVID-19, the crowd has been decent. Delhi, surprisingly, had superb crowd. We are not used to seeing huge crowd at big centres. So, Test cricket should be played everywhere,” he added.
(NDTV inputs)
