IND vs AUS: Rahul Dravid Made A Big Statement On Pitch Debate: The ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy has come to its final stage as players of both the teams are gearing up for the upcoming fourth and the final Test match. So far, there have been some exceptional performances from the players of both the sides in the ongoing series.
While India’s Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, and Ravichandran Ashwin have been amazing, on the other hand, Australia’s Nathan Lyon, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann and Usman Khawaja have led the way exceptionally well for Australia.
Despite all the amazing cricketing actions, the pitches in India have become one of the most talked-about topics. In fact, after the 3rd Test match, which took place at the Holkar Stadium in Indore, ended in two days, the pitch got a “poor” rating from the ICC. The BCCI has come under the scanner of criticism.
Indian head coach Rahul Dravid, who has been at the forefront of pitch inspection before the start of every Test of this Border-Gavaskar series, finally talked about the heated debate around the pitches.
Rahul Dravid has no regrets whatsoever about playing the current Test series against Australia on spinner-friendly surfaces as the World Test Championship points are valuable and the majority of nations are preparing result-oriented pitches.
Speaking in the pre-match conference on Tuesday in Ahmedabad, Dravid said:
“I won’t go too much into it. The match referee is entitled to make his opinion, share his thoughts on the pitch. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with his reading or not. With WTC points at stake, you are looking to play on wickets that produce results. Sometimes it can be difficult to get that balance perfectly right. That has happened not only in India but a lot of other places as well.”
Further, defending the Indian pitches, Dravid said that wickets all around the world have gone challenging over the past three-four years and every team wants to win, keeping the upcoming World Test Championship in mind.
“There is a huge premium on results and if you draw a game like we did in Kanpur versus New Zealand, that sets you back in a home game. When you have 12 for a win and 4 for draw, you want to get a win ahead of a draw,” he stated.
He added: “We have played on some challenging wickets when we go overseas also. Played in South Africa recently (2022), where spinners were completely taken out of the game,” he said curtly.
“And everyone wants to produce wickets where eventually one wants results. You will probably prepare wickets where the ball holds a bit more sway over the bat and that’s necessary and part of the game,”
