On the eve of the first match of the all-important Border-Gavaskar Trophy, new images of the Nagpur pitch surfaced online, which many feel is unfair for the left-handers as the curators have not watered the left side of the pitch, which the Australian experts and media feel is disadvantageous for the baggy greens as they have six left-hand batters.
The Australian experts accused India of doctoring the pitch. Cricket expert Robert Craddock said, “Australia have 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.”
Another expert, Simon O’Donnell, said, The ICC should step in and do something about it if they think it’s not right.”
Meanwhile, India skipper Rohit Sharma responded to the accusations and urged everyone to focus on cricket and not the pitch. After Sharma, former cricketer turned analyst Harbhajan Singh criticised Australian media and said it is saddening to see the pitch making more noise than Test cricket.
“India vs Australia is the biggest test series, I think. But sadly, pitches make more noise than test Cricket,” tweeted Harbhajan.
Interestingly Ravichandran Ashwin is eyeing a major Harbhajan Singh record in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The 36-year-old off-spinner will look to surpass Harbhajan as the 2nd leading wicket-taker against Australia.
सरफराज ने कोहली और डिविलियर्स का खोला राज़ – VIDEO
