India’s head Coach Rahul Dravid has no regrets whatsoever about playing the ongoing Test series against Australia on spinner-friendly tracks as World Test Championship points are valuable and most countries are preparing result-oriented pitches.
India’s head Coach Rahul Dravid has no regrets whatsoever about playing the ongoing Test series against Australia on spinner-friendly tracks as World Test Championship points are valuable and most countries are preparing result-oriented pitches.
While India leads Australia 2-1 in the four-Test series, ICC match referee Chris Broad’s “poor” rating of the Indore track has once again raised questions about playing on rank turners, where all of the games were completed in three days.
“I won’t go too much into it. The match referee is entitled to share his opinion. Doesn’t matter if I agree with his reading or not. Doesn’t matter what I think. But sometimes with WTC points at stake, you tend to play on wickets that produce results,”
Dravid was straightforward in his defense of the three tracks in Nagpur, Delhi, and Indore.
However, he didn’t forget to mention that data analysis of tracks prepared by home teams in the last few years has shown that the 22-yard strips have typically proven difficult.
“It can happen, not only in India but across the world if you see, sometimes it is difficult to get that balance perfectly right for everyone and that can happen not only here but in other places as well,” the man with 164 Test matches under his belt said.
Dravid did give a bit of an idea as to what has been the trigger behind asking for these kinds of raging turners. The 2021 Test match between India and New Zealand at Kanpur was the one in which they failed to take nine wickets on the last day.
“There is a huge premium on results and if you draw a game as we did in Kanpur versus New Zealand that sets you back in a home game. When you have 12 for a win and 4 for a draw, you want to get a win ahead of a draw,”
he stated.
There was a hint of sarcasm as well as irritation when he spoke about the tracks in South Africa where India played three Tests early last year.
“We have played on some challenging wickets when we go overseas also. Played in South Africa recently (2022), where spinners were completely taken out of the game,”
he said curtly.
“And everyone wants to produce wickets where eventually one wants results. You will probably prepare wickets where the ball holds a bit more sway over the bat and that is necessary and part of the game,”
Dravid didn’t deny the bowlers’ advantage.