Rahul Dravid in press conference© BCCI
India head coach Rahul Dravid on Monday said the team management does not ask for rank turners while playing at home and it is tough to predict how a particular pitch would play out over the course of five days in a Test. The previous series against England in 2021 and against Australia last year were played on raging turners with most games ending within three days. However, the first two Tests against England in the ongoing series have gone on for four days.
While Hyderabad was a slow turner, Vizag surface remained flat for the major part of the match.
Dravid is someone who is regular with his pitch inspections before and during the game and a lot of times in between sessions as well.
His longtime teammate Sourav Ganguly recently said that India don’t need to play on rank turners as they have a well balanced bowling attack.
When I see Bumrah Sami Siraj Mukesh bowl . I wonder why do we need to prepare turning tracks in india ..my conviction of playing on good wickets keeps getting stronger every game .. They will get 20 wickets on any surface with ashwin jadeja Kuldeep and axar .. batting quality…
” Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) February 3, 2024
Asked if more pitches like Vizag could be seen in the next three Tests, Dravid said he was clueless on the subject like anybody else.
“Curators make the pitches. We don’t ask for rank turners. Obviously tracks in India would spin, how much they’ll spin, how less they’ll spin, how much. I’m not an expert, obviously, wickets in India in the course of four or five days, they do turn but how much they’re going to turn.
“I sometimes get told they’ll turn on the third day, but they turn on the first day. Sometimes I get told they’ll turn on the second day and they don’t turn till day four,” Dravid said.
“So I’m sometimes as clueless as anybody else. We look at the wicket and we try and do the best we can on what we get. We go to Rajkot, we’ll see what we can get and play with whatever we get in front of.”
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