The pitch at the world's largest cricket ground - Narendra Modi stadium - has become the talk of the town after the day-night Test ended in just two days. The third Test played with the pink ball under lights has invited criticism from England players, current and former, especially regarding the quality of the pitch.
While the Indian skipper Virat Kohli and opening batsman Rohit Sharma denied if there were any demons on the pitch as Kohli termed it as poor batting from both sides, while Rohit said that most of the batsmen got out to straighter deliveries and pitch was a good one to bat on.
However, Kohli's defence of the pitch hasn't sat well with the former England skipper Sir Alastair Cook. The highest run-getter for England in Test matches, Cook has slammed the Indian captain saying that he 'defended the wicket almost as if it’s a BCCI thing'.
Cook was displeased by Kohli's comments and his assessment of the pitch and speaking Channel 4, he said, "Virat Kohli’s come out and defended the wicket almost as if it’s a BCCI thing — it cannot possibly be the wicket. Yet it was so hard to bat on that. So hard."
The four innings of the whole match produced just 387 runs, the 10th lowest aggregate of a completed Test match. Zak Crawley in the first innings for England and Rohit Sharma for India were the only two batsmen to go past 50-plus scores. Including Kohli, veterans like Sunil Gavaskar said that spinners played their part to the best of their abilities rather than blaming the pitch for being a rank turner.
Kohli had said it was a nice pitch to bat on, just that their spinners were more effective than England's. "The result went our way, but I don't think the quality of batting was up to standards from both teams, to be very honest. [It was] a very good pitch to bat on, especially in the first innings. We just felt like the ball was coming on very nicely, with the odd ball turning."
However, Cook didn't like Kohli blaming the batsmen.
"Take the wicket out and blame the batsmen? We've got Virat Kohli, Joe Root, we have some great players of spin. Yes, we've got some people who have got to learn to play spin better, but we have got great players of spin also struggling. To me It'd be great to have that game with the red ball to see the difference when the ball is skidding on. Today trying to play properly, it was nigh-on impossible," Cook said.
21 of the 30 wickets fell on the straighter deliveries, but Cook shed light on the fact that it meant the balls that did turn, turned miles.
"There’s been so many other balls that have gone straight on as well. So that means when it is turning, it is turning miles. When you see the highlights and the ball skidding on you, we don’t see the build-up: when the exact same ball is spinning miles,” Cook added.
