Since the conclusion of the third Test between India and England at the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium in Ahmedabad, several former cricketers and experts of the game have discussed more about the pitch rather than the players’ performance.
The Pink-Ball Test was completed in two days, as the Indian spin duo of Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin wreaked havoc after they bagged 18 out of 20 England wickets. This also led to a huge controversy concerning the Motera pitch.
The likes of Michael Vaughan, David Lloyd, Mark Waugh and Alastair Cook decided to criticise the track, while Sunil Gavaskar, Rohit Sharma, Deep Dasgupta, Shane Warne, Jack Leach, and many others backed the surface used in the third Test.
The latest to join the trend is England speedster Jofra Archer, who gave a slightly hilarious take on the whole matter. He recalled a match played in England domestic circuit, which finished in five sessions. Archer said that pitch is not his issue, however, a bad Wi-Fi connection would trouble him more.
“To me, it doesn’t matter what pitches we play on. There’s not much to complain about in life — apart from bad Wi-Fi, of course! The day-nighter I played against Glamorgan three years ago was over in five sessions, and on the day I signed my first Sussex contract, we beat Leicestershire inside two days, so matches finish quickly in England, too,” Archer wrote in his column for Daily Mail.
“Let’s be honest, we are in India, and we have to expect the ball to spin. That’s fine. Although it doesn’t mean that batting is easy,” he added.
Archer also shared England skipper Joe Root’s advice during the third Test, which the visitors lost by 10 wickets.
“In the first innings in Ahmedabad, it felt hard to get the ball away against their spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel. And so, ahead of the second innings, Joe Root encouraged us all to be fearless in our approach. He wanted us to realise we had nothing to lose and not to go into our shells, and he urged us to keep the same mentality for the rest of this series,” Archer wrote further.
