Home
Cricket News
Kohli Lambasts Hypercritical Views Of Spinning Pitches Outlines Silence On Seaming Tracks

Kohli lambasts hypercritical views of spinning pitches; outlines silence on seaming tracks

India’s skipper Virat Kohli has come down heavily on cricket pundits and former players who have criticised the pitches used in the last two Tests of the series between India and England. Kohli called the conversion around the quality of pitches ‘noise’ and lamented the lack of ‘balanced conversation’ on the narratives about pitches.

"There's always too much noise and too much conversation about spinning tracks. I'm sure that if our media is in a space to contradict those views or present views that say that it is unfair to criticise only spinning tracks, then I think it'll be a balanced conversation. But the unfortunate bit is that everyone sort of plays along with that narrative and just keeps making it news till the time it is relevant,” Kohli said in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday.

Kohli pointed out India’s big loss on overseas tours where matches finished early inside the three days, but the words that were propagated that Indian batsmen can’t play on seaming tracks, and while foreign batsmen fail on Indian pitches that assist turn and bounce, people start blaming the nature of pitches.

"A Test match happens, and if we win on day four or five no one says anything, but if a match finishes in two days, everyone pounces on the same issue. It just becomes an issue to talk about. We lost in New Zealand on day three, in 36 overs. I'm sure none of our people as well wrote about the pitch. It was all about how India played badly in New Zealand. And none of the pitches were criticised. No one came and saw how much the pitch was doing, how much the ball was moving, and how much grass there was on the pitches."

He expressed dismay over a lot of analysis over the quality of pitches and not the quality of innings by batsmen and spin bowling from both sides. He criticised batsmen from both sides for bizarre batting displays, especially in the last game. He outlined the impact of a Pink ball in the last Test but weighed in that the ball was the same in terms of general characteristics, and hence the onus was on batsmen to put up good efforts to set up the game, and they failed in the task.

"I don't understand why the cricket ball, the cricket pitch, all these things are brought into focus. Why don't we just focus on the fact that the batsmen were just not skilled enough on that pitch to play properly, and it was a bizarre display of batting by both teams in a Test match, and I will continue to maintain that, because I've played this game long enough to understand what happens on the cricket field. And it's not a change in the ball colour or the change in the cricket ball, it's still round, it still weighs five and a half ounces, so I don't know what difference it makes suddenly,” Kohli added.

India have been apologetic for playing on turning tracks and will be desperate to win the last Test to win the series and seal a spot in the World Test Championship for themselves on a similar pitch to the one in the last game.

Discover more

PSL 6: Quetta Galadiators’ Tom Banton is the new edition in Covid positive list

English batsman Tom Banton has confirmed testing positive for Covid-19. Posting a message on Twitter, the Quetta Gladiators’ foreign import thanked the fans for their well wishes, saying that his Covid-19 test, which took place on 2nd March, returned positive. The 22-year-old Chiltern born went on to thank Pakistan Cricket Board and Quetta team for looking after him. He also confirmed that he is following all the protocols as suggested by PSL officials and looking to recover as soon as possible. The PCB, on 02nd March, informed that a total of three members out of 244 tested, returned positive. Out of that, two were foreign players and one was support staff. Quetta though went on to lose the fourth game in a row as Ismalabad united made a light work of Sarfaraz Ahmed’s men. Quetta plays another game today against Multan Sultans at the National Stadium, Karachi, which is going to be literally do or die game, as, after this game, they would have played half their league games. If they lose tonight’s game, they would most probably get out of the Playoff’s race.

Playing two Test matches against India was a mistake: David Warner

Australian opener David Warner has said that it was a mistake to play the last two Tests matches against India last summer. According to Warner, forcing himself to play those games aggravated the injury he was nursing from before the start of the Test series. "I made the call to play those Test matches, felt like I needed to be out there and help the guys," Warner, who was headed to Adelaide to play for New South Wales against South Australia, told the reporters. Warner further said that the rushed decision making pushed his rehab down the line and has made him stay away from the game, longer than he anticipated. "Looking back in hindsight I probably wouldn't have done that, where I am with the injury it put me back a little bit,” Warner said. The dashing left-hander clarified that it was not his personal decision to play the Tests, rather a decision that he took for the team. "If I'm thinking about myself I probably would have said no, but I did what I felt was best for the team and me being out there opening the batting was I felt the best thing for the team," he said. Detailing his plans for the future, the 34-year-old said that his immediate target is to play the 2023 ODI World Cup, which he thinks is going to be his last World Cup. "I'm not thinking about the end date at all, for me it's about the 2023 World Cup,” said Warner. “From a Test cricket point of view I'd love to play as long as I can,” he added stating his Test plans.

NZ vs Aus | Swashbuckling Finch-Maxwell, accurate Asthon Agar sink Blackcaps in Wellington

Having been pushed against the wall after the loss in the first two T20Is, Australia came into the third T20 all guns blazing and defeated the hosts New Zealand by a big margin of 64 runs to keep the series alive. Chasing a momentous target of 209 runs was always going to be difficult for New Zealand at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington and an impressively accurate Ashton Agar broke their back in the middle overs to suppress any chance of them chasing the total. Martin Guptill was in no mood to waste his hard-earned form and started from where he had finished in the last game in Dunedin. The pacer duo of Jhye Richardson and the debutant Riley Meredith came under his hammer in the first couple of overs, but the newcomer held his nerve and saw the better of Seifert in the very first over of his T20I career. Aaron Finch was trying to be proactive and introduced the leg spinner Adam Zampa fairly early in the piece, but both Williamson and Guptill took a liking to him before Meredith came back with a changed end to snaffle a big wicket of Williamson. At the end of the powerplay, New Zealand were not way off track with 59 runs on the board although with the loss of two wickets. The hero of the first game--Devon Conway started opening his shoulders right after the end of the powerplay and Agar was taken to the cleaners by the left-hander. Agar conceded 12 runs in his first over and it looked like a terrible day on the filed was on offer. Adam Zampa punched a deadly blow to the Blackcaps by dismissing Guptill in the ninth over as Guptill felt the need of going big in the wake of run-rate surging past 11 runs per over. The next man in-- Glenn Phillips and Conway tried their best to get the hosts back on track but it was not to be tonight as Agar came back to redeem himself with his second over and took three big wickets of Phillips, Conway and James Neesham. 109/3 in 12 overs quickly became 111/6 and the prospect of a New Zealand win was all over before Agar came back to pick up two big wickets of Mark Chapman and Tim Southee in consecutive overs to crush whatever chances of magic the hosts had in the game. Agar finished with a magnificent figure of 30/6 and was rightly adjudged the Player of the Match. Earlier in the evening, Kane Williamson won the toss and asked the Australians to bat first on a pitch that left Australian skipper Aaron Finch weary for the moisture in it. The opening duo from New Zealand--Tim Southee and Trent Boult started off on a usual note a dn swung the balls from both ends. Boult was the first to strike and edged Matthew Wade to Guptill at the only slip stationed. There were a lot of noise about Aaron Finch’s lack of form leading up to this game, and he silenced one and all in some style. He was in an ominous mood from the word go and made his intentions clear in the third over by walking down the pitch and blasting Southee down the ground. Australia’s number three- Josh Phillipe has been impressive with the bat although he has not been able to win Australia games in this series. He was up and ready against Boult who was guilty of spraying the ball towards his pads in search of swing. The hero of the last game with the ball--James Neesham were not to have a great day and Finch provided an early hint with a first-ball six off the right-armer. His first over yielded 10 runs, while the second was an even expensive one but his tormentor was Phillipe. Williamson brought Ish Sodhi into the attack and the leg spinner repaid faith by getting Phillipe on the way back to the pavilion, but Finch’s show was to continue. At the end of the 13th over, Australia were 116/2 and with Finch and the new man Maxwell at the crease, they were poised to a big total, something in the excess of 200 runs by the end of the 20th over. Seeing Neesham getting tonked all across the ground, Williamson brought back the Boult-Southee duo once again, but by then, Australia had a completely different outlook than the one battered by the hosts in the last two games. Boult conceded 14 runs while Southee was smashed around the corners for 15 runs in his over. Sodhi came back to dismiss Finch after a 44-ball-69, but the baton was passed on to Maxwell and he looked like on a mission to annihilate Neesham and take revenge e from him for defeating them in the last game. New Zealand were a bowler short and hence Neesham was persisted with by Williamson and what followed in the 17th over of the innings was nothing but a brutal onslaught by Maxwell. Neesham tried everything from yorkers to short balls, but failures to execute properly allowed Maxwell to get hold of his deliveries and the over yielded 28 runs. Southee came back to see the back of Maxwell but not before he had taken away the momentum from the hosts with a nerve-racking 37-ball-70. New Zealand were able to carry out a bit of damage control, conceding only eight and nine runs in the last two overs, but Australia had already scored enough by the 18th over to test every bit of New Zealand’s might with the bat in the second innings.

Dale Steyn issues clarification over IPL-PSL comparison

After creating a furore with his opinion comparing the quality of different leagues across the world, former South African pacer Dale Steyn has issued a clarification and apology for hurting sentiments. However, he said that his words were taken out of context and got amplified by social media users in a tweet on Wednesday. Earlier in his interview with Cricket Pakistan, he had said that playing in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) where he is currently representing Quetta Gladiators this year or in the Lanka Premier League (LPL) have been more rewarding as a player. He had also said that the talks around money which the leagues such as the IPL have in abundance leave the actual cricket far behind. “I wanted some time off. I found that playing in these other leagues was slightly more rewarding as a player. I think when you go to IPL, there are such big squads and so many big names and so much emphasis on maybe the amount of money players earn and everything like that, so sometimes, somewhere down the line, cricket gets forgotten,” Steyn had said to Cricket Pakistan. “When you come to like a PSL or the Sri Lankan Premier League, for that matter, there is an importance on the cricket. I have only been here for a couple of days and I have had people in and out of my room, just wanting to know about where I have played and how I went about it. Whereas, when I go to something like the IPL that gets forgotten and the main topic is how much money did you go for in this IPL? That’s just me being brutally honest. I wanted to stay away from that and really put more emphasis on playing and bringing good vibes to good cricket teams and tournaments I feel are worth it.” Dale Steyn was released by the Royal Challengers Bangalore before the auction of the next edition of the IPL. He could feature in only three games last season where he picked up only one wicket at an alarming economy rate of 11.33 runs per over. Steyn has played right from the first season of the IPL in 2008 and represented franchises such as the RCB, now-defunct Deccan Chargers, Sunrisers Hyderabad, and Gujarat Lions. He was at his peak in the tournaments between 2010-13 when he picked up 66 wickets across four seasons. His numbers in the league started to dwindle as he started struggling for fitness and could not play in the majority of games for his franchises.