Aakash Chopra has criticised India for providing poor pitch conditions for Test matches for several years. After electing to bat first in the 3rd Test between India and Australia, India was bowled out for 109 on Wednesday, March 1, in Indore. By the end of play on Day 1, the visitors’ first-innings score was 156/4, giving them a significant lead of 47 runs with six wickets remaining.
Aakash Chopra criticised the Indore pitch when analysing the first day of play in a video posted to his YouTube channel, saying:
“When you see the pitch, you ask why we play on these pitches. What is even happening? The biggest question is that if we are playing on these pitches regularly, we may get the opposition team stuck almost 10 out of 10 times, but you may also get stuck there sometime.”
Chopra emphasised that India’s batting needs help to score runs, even though the team may be winning games on such wickets more frequently than not. He elaborated as follows:
“You don’t play well; you win because your top order is not scoring runs. Only Rohit Sharma could score runs, and the rest of your top-order situation is bad as it is difficult to score runs in such conditions.”
Chopra noted that the Indian hitters might boost their self-assurance by racking up runs at home:
“If your batters do not score runs at home & get the confidence they need, how will you get confidence away from home? You do not search for confidence in Australia and England, and you must find confidence here.”
The former cricket player turned commentator summed up by saying that India can’t always rely on their lower order to save them:
“The kind of pitches that we’re dishing out for the game – not to my liking. From January 2021 to now, the batters have suffered because they have an average of 23. This pitch was also like that, & we got stuck. Everyone got out. Axar (Patel) & (Ravichandran) Ashwin will not save you always.”
