The pitches from the first two Tests in ongoing India vs Australia Border-Gavaskar Trophy have been the subject of multiple discussions. Addressing this discussion, ICC has issued its verdict on the strips from these games and deemed them to be ‘Average’ as reported by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
This verdict was reportedly given by match referee Andy Pycroft. In both games, the Indian team won in the space of three days and convincingly took down the Aussies. In Nagpur, Team India registered a massive victory by an inning and 132 runs where Ravindra Jadeja starred with seven wickets with the ball and a 70-run knock in the first innings.
The script seemed similar in the second Test in Delhi as well, where India chased down a measly total of 114 runs after another brilliant bowling effort. Jadeja once again was the top performer as he picked up ten wickets in the game, including a spell of seven wickets in the second innings where the Australian batting suffered a massive collapse.
The possible reasoning behind these ratings could be the performance of Indian batters, who managed to score big runs in both games. In Nagpur, India managed to score 400 runs in the first innings. Then in Delhi, Indian batters fell short by one run of the Australian.
As mentioned earlier, these surfaces have been heavily scrutinized especially by the Australian media. Former Aussie international, Ian Healy demanded that ICC must step in to analyse the pitch. He also deemed the wicket in Nagpur to be ‘not good for cricket’.
“It’s really embarrassing the scuppering of our plans to get some practice sessions on that Nagpur wicket,” Healy said. “That’s not good, that’s just not good for cricket. The ICC needs to step in here. For them to water the wicket unceremoniously when it was requested for practice is horrible and that has to improve.”
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