Former international cricketers Shane Warne and Michael Vaughan engaged in a war of words on Twitter as the duo discussed the Chennai pitch for the ongoing second Test match between India and England.
The pitch with a darker shade turned from ball one as India won a crucial toss and decided to bat first. Thanks to Rohit Sharma’s 161 and half-centuries from Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant, India managed to put 329 on the board.
England didn’t have such luck in their first innings as Ravichandran Ashwin and Akshar Patel decimated their batting lineup with even Joe Root and Ben Stokes failing to counter the Indian spin attack. Even Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Siraj managed to earn a scalp as well.
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Ollie Pope (22), Ben Stokes (18), and Ben Foakes managed to evade the inevitable for some time, but Ashwin and Akshar got the better of the England batting with Joe Root making 6 runs and falling to a sweep, giving Akshar his maiden Test wicket. It was this shot which he employed with great precision in the first Test where he scored 218 and 40.
The pitch has been a spiteful one with spinners getting maximum support, however, on which England’s Moeen Ali picked 4 wickets, but gave 128 runs in his 29 overs with an economy of 4.41.
Meanwhile, Michael Vaughan and Shane Warne decided to have a lengthy argument which started with Vaughan calling the pitch a ‘shocker’ and calling it unsuitable for Test cricket. Warne countered by saying that in the first Test, the pitch only turned viciously on day 5 and for this match, it has been turning from day one, presenting both teams the same surface.
Here are the tweets of Vaughan v Warne argument:
