Right in the middle of the second test between India and England, there were lot of criticism about the pitch and it continued into the 3rd test and even after the tests were complete. The players who were defending were Indians players who are currently playing in the series. My point is players must not defend pitches because it is not their job to do so.
Virat Kohli
“There is always too much noise and too much conversation about spinning tracks,”The unfortunate bit is that everyone sort of plays along that narrative and just keeps making it news till the time it is relevant.”
“I still maintain the result in the last game was purely down to bizarre batting.”
Rohit Sharma
“…The pitch is the same for both the teams, so I don’t know why this topic is raised every time. Both the teams play on the same pitch. People say pitches shouldn’t be like this or that but for years Indian pitches are made like this only,”
“I have a question back. What is a good cricket surface?”
The bowler wants to win the game. The batsman needs to bat well to get runs. No question about it. What makes a good surface? Who defines this? Seam on the first day and then bat well and then spin on the last two days? Come on!” Ashwin added.
Top players defending the pitch
Virat Kohli, Ashwin & Rohit Sharma are the mainstays of the Indian team. They need to plan for the next game and plot of the downfall of their opponents. Instead, they were made to defend the quality of the pitches in almost all the games. This is utter nonsense. Their job is to take wickets and score runs and ultimately win the game. Yes, I agree. Questions will invariably to asked to whomever attends the press conference and that poor fellow is required to defend the pitch if he is an Indian player or oppose the pitch if he is from the opponent. It must stop with that one press conference and must not be carried on even after the game is complete.
Repeated questioning
However, the reality was different. The players were asked the same question by the press about the pitch every now and then. Before the start of the test during the test and at the end of the test. This is ridiculous. Not all the players will be good in communication. They are not required to be good in communication because they are not required to be. Someone might say something that he never intended or whatever he said could have be interpreted in another way. This results in unnecessary comments like what Andrew Stauss said
“To say the pitch has no fault to play, I totally agree with Cooky. Kohli’s looking after the groundsmen there to a certain degree
This is something Kohli does not really need to hear. These comments will certainly have an effect at the sub-conscious level.
Who is responsible?
So the question arises. Who must answer questions related to the pitch?
The answer is pretty simple. It must be the host board and in this case, this must be the Board of Control for Cricket in India. In this case, the President of the BCCI which is Saurav Ganguly. The ground is in the control of the board. The pitches are laid by the curators who are employed by the board and therefore it is the responsibility of the board to answer the questions.
The board knew quite well that the pitches in Chennai and Ahmedabad are criticised for helping spin and Ganguly must have immediately attended the press conference or sent someone to attend the post match press conference and answered all the questions. The board could have directed the players not to talk about the pitch and direct all the questions to the BCCI appointed representative. It would have allowed the players to concentrate on their game. This is actually one more failure on the part of the board. However, knowing the BCCI, who never takes responsibility, this is something they will never follow. They will rather have the players face the heat rather than go out and defend or explain the situation to the press. Hence, I think that this is a wishlist that will never come to fruition.
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