The preparation of the pitch for the Border Gavaskar Trophy‘s opening game in Nagpur has generated a lot of discussions. Indians think it is completely fair to take advantage of home conditions, while Australians think the home team is unfairly taking advantage by curating rank-turners.
In the meantime, the stadium grounds crew did some special fine-tuning to the playing pitch on Tuesday. After watering the entire surface, only the centre of the pitch received the roller treatment, and extra watering was done outside the left-leg hander’s stump.
Responding to the pitch, senior cricket expert Robert Craddock said on SEN’s podcast, ”It’s a multi-toned pitch. The classic saying about pitches is, ‘Oh, it’s the same for everyone”.
“When the Gabba pitch too much grass was left on it, people were saying, ‘Yes, it was not a great wicket, but it was the same everyone. But you can’t say that about this pitch, Australia has six left-handers in their top eight, so if you start multi-preparing parts of the deck that’s straight-up pitch doctoring, it’s poor,” he said.
Here is how Twitter reacted to Australian Jouranlist’s comments
Bhindi Rona shuru Inka
— Heisenberg? (@heisen89) February 8, 2023
Lo shuru ( Cry babies have landed)
— Ravi ?? (@ravi_enigma) February 8, 2023
What so the Aussies do?
— Shankar Iyer (@shankariyer1955) February 8, 2023
@Shreshre2 typical
— B G (@prezpcc) February 8, 2023
Its always nice to see ozs crying ??
— Tush (@imTushal) February 8, 2023
pitch doctoring , it will turn massively for left handers pic.twitter.com/P7rWP0Tmo4
— maddy (@sharmamaddy4321) February 8, 2023
Anything is agreeable other than using sandpaper to roughen up the surface
— Harikishan (@itzzmeHK) February 8, 2023
Sure every country does it to some degree . Havn’t seen quite the doctoring effort as this . Not even trying to hide it ?
— Andrew Dickinson (@Andrewerd) February 8, 2023
Imagine having a good enough team and local conditions on your side to win the series anyway, and still resorting to blatant pitch doctoring. If that section of the pitch plays different to the rest from ball one – ICC has to step in and declare it unfit.
— Mitch Wynd (rhymes with sinned) (@MitchWynd) February 8, 2023
Correct
— Mitchell McClenaghan (@Mitch_Savage) February 8, 2023
