India’s bowling coach, Paras Mhambrey, has been surprised with the Ranchi pitch and the way it has behaved so far.
Despite expecting a slow surface which would play slower as the game goes on, the home team didn’t foresee the ball keeping so low on just on Day 2 of the fourth Test against England.
“From what we have seen out here, generally, the nature of the pitch is that it gets slower as the game progresses. We expected that. But, to be honest, we didn’t expect it to play that low on the second day itself,” said Mhambrey after the end of the day’s play.
With 17 wickets falling in two days and spinners dominating play on Day 2, the pitch showed signs of turn and variable bounce. However, Mhambrey refrained from calling it a rank turner. He felt the bounce is on the lower side and clarified that the team management never requested such a surface.
“I don’t think this is a turner, it has variable bounce on the lower side. There was no instruction from the management to ask for a turner. That’s how the nature of soil here has been. It has always been on the slow side. No ball has spun sharply yet, so wouldn’t call it a turner,” asserted Mhambrey.
He credited English spinners Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley, underlining their approach that resulted in six of the seven Indian wickets. “I think they bowled well. (They) kept a simple line and length. At this level, you expect your opposition to do that. They kept it simple and picked up wickets for that.”
Root says he was desperate to get runs
England’s batting hero Joe Root said he was keen to contribute with a big score after a series of poor performances. “I was desperate to get some runs for the guys and I was happy to do that,” said Root.
He showered praise on the young English spinners. “I hadn’t seen much of him (Bashir) before this series but he is a great character and has a sense of humor. It was great to see him keep coming at the batters,” the century-maker added.
Root is expecting pitch to further deteriorate. He highlighted the importance of dismissing India quickly, given their current position of 219/7 in reply to England’s 353.
The ex-skipper emphasised the need to take early wickets. “We will see how things progress. Obviously, it looks like it (pitch) would keep deteriorating and keep getting worse. If we can get three early wickets, that puts us in a really strong position for the rest of the game,” Root said.