Nothing can be more humiliating than losing a Test series at home, and that is what happened with Rohit Sharma‘s Team India, who suffered 0-3 defeat at the hands of New Zealand. This was for the first time that the team lost by such a big margin at home. And the culprit has to be the turning tracks, that were supposed to bring the downfall of the Kiwis, but instead the hosts lost the plot.
IND vs NZ Tests
Having said that, the Indians need to regroup now, because November 22 will mark the start of the first IND vs AUS Test in Perth. And if Harbhajan Singh is to be believed, then the pitches there will be slightly better for sure. “There is a difficult Australia tour coming up for India. But having said that, the conditions here were difficult. The ones there will be a lot better than these. Throughout the three matches, the pitches only aided the spinners. ‘Gaddha doosro ke liye khoda, gir khud gaye’, it was that case,” he said.
The former India spinner did not stop there, and added that not just the team, but individual players have also suffered on account of there poor pitches, that have ended the careers of many good players. “In the last many years, those sort of pitches are being created, where the matches get over only in 2-3 days. That is not how it works in Tests. In Test cricket, you want the matches to run five days.”
“I mean there should not be so much of tinkering with the conditions. If cricket is played on good wickets, then I think the Indian batsmen are far more capable of doing better. Now look, just because the wickets are so bad, so many careers have been ruined. Ajinkya Rahane is one of those players, whose average dipped, given the nature of these pitches. Our batsmen have started doing better abroad than at home, which was the opposite earlier,” he concluded.
For the record, Mitchell Santner picked up 13 wickets for the Kiwis, in the two Tests he played, while Ajaz Patel bagged 15 in three, as the Indian batters were found wanting, tackling the opposition bowlers.
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