Axar Patel answers the questions regarding pitch conditions, says: ‘We are playing on the same wicket and scoring runs’
Indian all-rounder, Axar Patel answered the questions regarding pitch conditions in the second Test at Chennai, says that we are playing on the same pitch as before and scoring runs.
The debutant slow left-arm spinner, Axar Patel says that critics on spinner friendly tracks need to change as Indian team never complained about the seamer-friendly green tops overseas.
As the former England captain, Michael Vaughan termed it a Chepauk pitch, used for the second Test as underprepared but India tackled it quite well as they had two centurions and three players scoring half-centuries in the two innings while playing 180 plus overs.
“If you are talking about pitch, I don’t think any ball hit the helmet. There is a normal spin on offer. We are playing on the same track and scoring runs, so I don’t think anyone should have any problems and feel that wicket is like this or that and so on,”
said Axar.
The 27-year-old Gujrat left-arm spinner who is playing the debut Test match for India, also his 50th International game from India gave a strong reply to English media and commentators for calling Chennai’s pitch a Chepauk surface.
“Also when we go overseas, we never complain while playing on the seaming track and complain that there is more grass on the wicket. I think people need to change their mindset rather than thinking about the wicket,”
he stated at the end of day 3 play.
He also said that the pitch is not tricky or Chepauk but one needs to hit the deck harder to get an offer of the turn. He also said that we are playing on the same wicket and scoring runs. You don’t need anything extra but release the ball slowly and the pitch will offer something.
“On this wicket, there is help for spinners so you don’t need to do anything extra. When you are putting a bit more effort and body into the ball, then you are getting the ball to spin. When you are hitting the deck hard, then only you are getting the ball to turn.
“If you are releasing it slowly, there is not much help for the slow bowlers. So hitting the deck with a decent speed is important and that’s creating difficulty for batsmen. If you bowl slow, then the batsman is moving to back foot and adjusting,”
Axar said.
He further said that when we play, we don’t care about the outside world and we just give a message through our performance. We just focus on playing cricket. It was the third day of Test so we did not declare and the fourth day as we would have declared. We were thinking of batting long, he talked about the team strategy.
Having picked up four to six wickets to Ravichandran Ashwin in the game so far, the replacement for Ravindra Jadeja’s replacement spoke about the respect he has for his senior national and IPL teammate.
“I and Ash have played a lot of cricket together and I have learnt a lot over the years about mindset from him. We have different actions and variations, so we generally talk about mindsets and working out various batsmen,”
said Axar.
He was part of the playing 11 in the first Test as a debutant but a knee niggle at the eleventh hour led him to the sidelines of the team.
He said that it was a good decision for me not to play in the first Test because if I broke down in the middle of the game, it would have been a serious problem for my team and that would not be good news.
I did not want that to happen as I can only wish good for my team so I made a conscious decision after consulting my physio. I was frustrated but the good thing is that I am fit and ready to give 100% to my side.