India captain Rohit Sharma touched upon the subject of pitches and emphasized his team’s capacity to emerge victorious on various surfaces, including rank turners. His words came after the hosts handed England a 434-run loss in the third Test of the five-match series in Rajkot on February 18, 2024.
This is India’s biggest Test win in terms of runs and England’s second-ever biggest loss in Tests. Despite setting a mammoth target of 557 runs for England on a placid pitch with over four sessions remaining, the visitors succumbed within 40 overs, managing only 122 runs.
India had scored 445 and 430/4d on the same track, while England made 319 in its first innings.
"We have won a lot of matches on such wickets before. The turning tracks and on pitches where the ball turns remain our strength. It gives us balance. We have given results for many years and we will get results in the future as well. But we don't have control over certain things - we don't discuss whether we want rank turners or not. We come here (at the venues) two days before the match and how much can we do anyway in two days?
The curators decide and make the pitch. We have the strength to play on any wicket and win on it. When we won the Test in South Africa (at Cape Town), everyone knows what kind of wicket it was," Rohit Sharma told media after the match.
Rohit mentioned that the Indian team has successfully navigated through all conditions observed in the first three Tests.
"(In) the last three Tests we played, there were different challenges. In the first Test (Hyderabad), the ball was spinning and the pitch was slow. In Vizag, it was (keeping) low. As the game progressed, the wicket became slower. Here, it played well for the first three days.
Today, we saw that the ball was turning and it was low. This is (in) the nature (of pitches), we get pitches like these in India. But if we get rank turners, we will play on them as well," Rohit added.
Rohit stated that England batters have played their strokes even against good balls in the last three Tests, forcing Indian bowlers to be very disciplined with their line and length.
"(Ollie) Pope got that 190-odd (in series opener), he was very much in control and played shots off some really good balls," Rohit said.
"When the batter is doing that, obviously the plan is very simple to keep it nice and tight. (It is important to) follow the plans that have been discussed. These guys have bowled a lot in these conditions, they exactly know how to keep coming back into the game," he added.
(PTI inputs)
