Ahead of the fourth Test against Australia at Melbourne, a Boxing Day Test match, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma said that the team did practice on used pitches and will be getting fresh pitches during Tuesday’s training session. He also offered his assessment of the pitch made so far and the possibility of playing an additional spinner. With the series level at 1-1, the second half of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy promises to be a thrilling ride for the next two matches at Melbourne and Sydney, winning them would be important for both team’s ICC World Test Championship chances.
As Team India navigates through a long, five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against Australia, it faced another challenge ahead of the fourth Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) as players negotiated with the practice pitches allotted to them. The pitches used by them in the sessions so far have been old and offered low bounce, unlike fresh surfaces given to Australia for their practice.
During the Sunday’s practice session, a delivery from pacer Akash Deep kept low and hit skipper Rohit on his left knee. While dismissing any concerns over Rohit’s fitness, Akash had revealed the low bounce on the pitch, saying that he felt that the practice surface was meant for white-ball cricket and kept low.
“Such minor wounds are not anything unusual when you are playing cricket. It is not a big concern. But I felt the practice wicket was meant for the white ball and was keeping low. It was difficult to leave. But there are no concerns at all,” the bowler had said as quoted by cricket.com.au.
Reports from Australia suggested that India was practicing on wickets that had been used for the Big Bash League (BBL) and were a bit worn out from use. Pictures from the MCG showed what appeared to slightly worn out wickets on which the Indian team had been doing its practice drills
However, on Monday morning, the MCG head curator Matt Page clarified that fresh pitches are only offered three days before the start of the match.
“Yeah, so, for us, three days out, we prepare test match pitches for here. If teams come and train before that, they get what pitches we have had. So, today we are on fresh pitches. If India had trained this morning, they would have been on those fresh pitches. So, it is stock standard procedure for us, three days out,” he said.
Now, the Indian skipper has confirmed that India did practice on used pitches and will get fresher pitches during Tuesday’s sessions.
“I think those pitches which we trained the last couple of days, I think they were used pitches, I think they were used for Big Bash, and now today is the only day where we are going to get the other side of it, which will be fresher wicket. So we will go and see how it is and we will train accordingly,” he said during the pre-match presser.
On his assessment of the MCG pitch, Rohit said that he had a look a day before and it had a “bit of grass covering”.
“And we are certainly considering the weather factor and all of that. We will see what is the best. I have not seen the wicket today. But whatever we have to do to make the best possible 11 in these conditions, we will try and do that, whether it is playing an extra spinner or not,” added Rohit on possibility of playing an extra spinner.
India’s squad for fourth and fifth Tests: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Devdutt Padikkal, Tanush Kotian.
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