The pitches served for the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia has become a major talking point with all three Tests getting over inside three days.
While the surfaces for the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi have received “average” rating, the strip for the third Test in Indore has been rated “poor” by the International Cricket Council.
Amid the scrutiny, India head coach Rahul Dravid on Tuesday (March 7) defended the spin-friendly tracks, saying that World Test Championship points are at stake and most countries are preparing result-oriented pitches.
“I won’t go too much into it. The match referee is entitled to share his opinion. Doesn’t really matter if I agree with his reading or not. Doesn’t matter what I think. But sometimes with WTC points at stake, you tend to play on wickets that produce results,” Dravid said in a press conference ahead of the fourth Test in Ahmedabad.
“It can happen, not only in India but across the world if you see, sometimes it is difficult to get that balance perfectly right for everyone and that can happen not only here but in other places as well,” he added.
Dravid also gave an idea as to what has been the trigger behind asking for such rank turners. It was the 2021 Kanpur Test against New Zealand, where India failed to pick up nine wickets on the final day.
“There is a huge premium on results and if you draw a game as we did in Kanpur versus New Zealand, that sets you back in a home game. When you have 12 for a win and 4 for a draw, you want to get a win ahead of a draw,” he stated.
“We have played on some challenging wickets when we go overseas also. Played in South Africa recently (2022), where spinners were completely taken out of the game.”
“And everyone wants to produce wickets where eventually one wants results. You will probably prepare wickets where the ball holds a bit more sway over the bat and that’s necessary and part of the game,” the India coach further remarked.
In the ongoing Test series against Australia, India have only one century among top-order batter, scored by skipper Rohit Sharma.
“You need to be realistic as to what is a good performance on these challenging wickets, not only here but if you look at last three to four years, wickets have generally got challenging everywhere.
“So you need to be realistic about what the bench-marks are now, what standards are on these kinds of surfaces just one good performance can change the game. We saw that with Rohit’s performance (in Nagpur) and we have seen that,” Dravid stated.
“It might not be a double hundred but a 50-60 or 70 somewhere, but could actually be a very, very good score in some conditions.”
The fourth and final Test is scheduled to get underway on March 9.
(With PTI Inputs)
