Thanks to impressive wicket hauls by Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin, team India won the third pink ball test against England getting one step closer to the World Test Championship (WTC) final. Having said that, the pitch at Ahmedabad received a lot of criticism from commentators and former England cricketers.
NDTV quoted Michael Vaughan saying, “India won the third Test but it was a shallow victory. In fact, there were no winners from that game at all.” and “How can anyone say that 250 is a par first-innings score in a Test match and claim the pitch is good enough.”
Ahead of the fourth and final Test that begins on March 4, Rohit Sharma (who was the highest-scoring batsman with 66 runs in the first innings of the third test) has shared a post saying, “Wondering what would be the pitch like for 4th test”.
News18 quoted him saying after the match,
“To be honest I didn’t do anything different. On a pitch like that, you need to have intent. You need to look to score as well, you can’t just keep blocking. The odd ball might just turn, skid on to the stumps if you play for the turn. It’s important to use your feet, try and do as many things as possible to stay ahead of the bowler’s mindset. You need to make sure that you try and find ways to score runs.”
People praised ‘the hitman’ for his cheeky dig and confidently remarked that he would score well despite what the pitch was like.
We’re excited to see the Men in Blue in the final test match, are you?