India’s vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane has revealed that there will be no respite for the tourists as the fourth Test match pitch in Ahmedabad will be a spinning track, just like the second and third Test.
Rahane has brushed aside the pitch criticism and stated that the Indian team never complains when they get seaming wickets in overseas conditions.
The pitch in the previous two Test matches has been under the scanner and a lot of former England players have criticized the pitch. However, the visitors haven’t been able to come up with the goods in the challenging conditions. England was bundled out for a paltry score of 112 runs in the first essay whereas they could only manage 81 runs in the second innings on the vicious pitch of Ahmedabad.
England has been pushed to the limits but their batsmen have failed to show any kind of resistance against the turning ball. Axar Patel had scalped 11 wickets in the third Test match whereas Ravichandran Ashwin had bagged seven wickets. Thus, both of these spinners had breathed down the neck of the English batsmen.
“The wicket will be similar to the third Test and the second Test that we played in Chennai. It will be a spinning track,” he said. “Pink ball made a difference, it was coming on to the bat much quicker. That’s an adjustment that we had to make. But as I said, the pitch will be similar to the one for the last two Tests.”
Rahane also respond to continuous chatter regarding the quality of pitches in the last two Test matches. The Indian vice-captain added that their technique gets questioned in the overseas conditions when they fail to deliver but they never complain about the pitch.
“See, let people speak what they want to. The wickets, when we tour abroad, no one speaks about how seaming they are. They always speak about the technique of the Indian batsmen, I don’t feel we need to take seriously what people say.
“You see, when we tour abroad, the first day wicket is damp. When wicket becomes grassy and behaves up and down, then the pitch becomes dangerous but we haven’t complained about it or we have never spoken about it,” Rahane said during a virtual media conference on Tuesday.
Rahane added that the hosts won’t make the mistake of taking England lightly and their focus is to win the series and qualify for the final of the ICC World Test Championship. The fourth Test match will take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad from March 4.
