Sourav Ganguly: Prepare Sporting Wickets Instead of Rank Turners, We Need to Play on Good Wickets

Sourav Ganguly has advocated that looking at India's talent pool, especially in the bowling department, India should prepare more competitive pitches, which can last for five days instead of preparing the tracks that favour spinners. He believes that Indian bowlers will win it for the country.

Hyderabad: After witnessing an exceptional display of reverse swing bowling from pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, India's former skipper Sourav Ganguly on Saturday demanded more sporting pitches in Test cricket that can go up to five days instead of rank turners.

The former left-hand batter, who has been a supporter of fast bowling throughout his career, believes that Indian bowlers are skilful enough to take all 20 wickets in a Test match on more competitive pitches on any pitch. He advocated for more competitive tracks for red-ball matches to watch some competition from batters as well. India has bowled out their opposition on 37 occasions out of 47 innings while having the best bowling average (25.27) of all the teams since the World Test Championship 2021.

Ganguly expressing his opinion on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), he said, “When I see (Jasprit) Bumrah, (Mohammed) Shami, (Mohammed) Siraj and Mukesh (Kumar) bowl, I wonder why do we need to prepare to turn tracks in India. My conviction of playing on good wickets keeps getting stronger in every game. They will get 20 wickets on any surface with (Ravichandran) Ashwin, (Ravindra) Jadeja, Kuldeep (Yadav) and Axar Patel.”

The former BCCI president also mentioned that overall batting quality in the longer format has dropped in the last few years because of preparing pitches that can favour the home team to turn results in their favour with quick results in mind.

“Batting quality dropping because of pitches in the last six to seven years at home. The good wickets are a must. India will still win over five days,” Ganguly added.

Coming to the match, Jasprit Bumrah claimed six wickets as India dismissed England for 253 in their first innings after scoring 396 on the second day of the second Test in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. Bumrah (6/45) notched up his 10th five-wicket haul, also crossing the 150-wicket milestone in his 34th Test match, to break the back of the England innings.

Kuldeep Yadav (3/71) and Axar Patel (1/24) were the other wicket-takers. Opener Zak Crawley made a 78-ball 76, while skipper Ben Stokes scored 47. England still trails India by 143 runs.

Earlier, Yashasvi Jaiswal struck his maiden double century as India were all out for 396 in their first innings. James Anderson (3/47), Rehan Ahmed (3/65) and Shoaib Bashir (3/138) picked up three wickets each for England.

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