The pitch laid out for the day-night Test between India and England in Motera, Ahmedabad, has been a hot topic of debate. It started assisting the spinners with turn right from the first day and the match finished in just two days time as well.

However, Indian batsman Rohit Sharma, who was the highest scorer in the match, said that he didn’t find any sort of ‘demons’ in the pitch. According to him, it was just the lack of application from batsmen that led to such a poor batting performance from both the teams.

“If you look at the 30 wickets which have fallen. I don’t see anything the pitch did. It’s what the batsmen did. It’s not just them, we played horribly too. It seemed a normal pitch to me. Very typical Indian wicket,” Rohit said.

“We didn’t pick the right shots to play. No rough unlike in Chennai. England batsmen just missed the line against Axar, and we also played well below our skillet. We will be equipped to handle these conditions in the future,” he added.

The 33-year-old also said that the pink-ball played a major role in the match as well. He said that the extra lacquer on the ball resulted in it coming quicker onto the bat off the surface.

“It came to the bat faster than the red ball. It has got to do with the conditions in the evening. Temperature goes down and the dew too. Again, all in all, the pace of the pink ball is slightly faster. We need to adjust to that,” he said.

Rohit also heaped praise on Axar Patel, who picked up 11 wickets in the match and hence, was adjudged the ‘Man of the Match’ as well. However, it was Ravichandran Ashwin whom he termed as the biggest match-winner in Indian cricket history.

“One of our match-winners or the match-winner in Indian cricket history. He has won so many games for us. Big congratulations to him. Great feat. Hats off to him. Also his contribution with the bat in this series can’t be forgotten,” Rohit said.