Former England captain Michael Vaughan has been a constant criticizer of the pitches in the ongoing India-England four-match Test series. The ongoing fourth Test in Ahmedabad was the first time England made over 200 runs after their 578 in the first innings of the first Test in Chennai.
Vaughan and several other former cricketers from England and Australia have been quite vocal about the surfaces being made for the Test matches, which have been primarily spin-friendly, with Mark Waugh even saying such pitches are not good for Test cricket as they might render fast bowlers extinct.
But Vaughan’s tone has quickly shifted to blaming the England batsmen for their inefficiency to tackle quality spin, after Joe Root’s side barely crossed the 200-run mark batting first in the 4th Test, after winning the toss and choosing to bat.
England even dropped a bowler to accommodate an extra batsman, but still saw themselves struggling for runs on a pitch that is offering less spin and is much better to bat on.
“This has been a terrible Batting display .. No excuses,” he tweeted.
Only Ben Stokes with 55 and Dan Lawrence with 46 seemed good enough to challenge Indian spinners, out of which Akshar Patel impressed once again with figures of 4/68, while Mohammed Siraj also picked a couple of scalps, Washington Sundar getting rid of Ben Stokes and R Ashwin picking three wickets (3/47).
Vaughan, this time described the pitch as a perfect surface to bat on, having no words to criticize the Motera strip. “England’s batting so far worse than any of the last few Tests ... This Pitch is a perfect surface to get a big first innings score ... No spin ... Ball coming onto the Bat ... Very poor Batting so far,” he further said.
