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‘Our’s Chicanery, But When...,’ - Gavaskar Calls English Media ‘Biggest Whingeing And Moaning’

image-lr4nhtk6Ben Stokes (X.com)

Sunil Gavaskar minced no words taking the media from England, South Africa and Australia to task and called out the longstanding hypocrisy in speaking about the pitches and ground curators elsewhere.

The Indian batting great lambasted the SENA media and its coverage of the surfaces used in their territory for Test cricket and the difference in opinions when the curators in the subcontinent do the same thing and allow home teams to play to their historic strength.

Gavaskar's remarks came on the back of the shortest-ever Test match played in Cape Town between India and South Africa, which was over before tea on Day 2, with the tourists winning by seven wickets to level the series.


Gavaskar Takes 'Whingeing' SENA Media To Task 

Gavaskar underlined this as an ironic response from the overseas media, which would've given an Indian curator heavy flak if the match was played on an Indian ground and the Test was over just as quickly. 

"These kind of excuses that the curator got it wrong is typical of the SENA countries," Gavaskar wrote in his column for 'Mid-Day'. "When our curators make a dry pitch then it’s ‘chicanery’, as a former Australian skipper said last year after the Aussies had been walloped in the first two Test matches."

"So our groundsmen do it deliberately, but their groundsmen just get it wrong. It’s like before the third country umpires came in, where decisions by their umpires were excused as ‘human error’ while our umpires were cheats and ‘Delhi Butchers’ and all such derogatory headlines."

Gavaskar also took a direct aim at English media ahead of the looming five-Test series in India and called the journalists based in the UK the biggest whingers in the sporting realms, who will complain the moment things go against their side. 

"In about three weeks time another Test series starts with a country that has the biggest whingeing and moaning media in sport. Anything that doesn’t suit their team will be criticised and allegations will fly thick and fast," wrote the legend.

In the aftermath of the game, the discourse is how the curator based at the Newlands Stadium erred in his judgment to leave extra grass on the deck to ensure it doesn't break open amidst the scorching weather at the height of the Proteas summer.