Hyderabad: Legendary left-handed pace bowler Karsan Ghavri, who alongside Kapil Dev plucked 183 wickets in 27 Test matches, feels the wicket at Motera and Chennai are like "fields to grow vegetables" and he has never been witnessed to such strips in his entire cricket career.
In an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat, Ghavri talks about Motera and Chennai pitches, and England team's misjudgement of the 22 yards in the last Test match at Narendra Modi Stadium.
Excerpts:
Q. Do you think the wicket at Motera and Chennai was unfair on England?
A. I feel it's unfair to play on such a wicket because our Indian cricket lovers and people who watch the game in stadium and television view cricket as an entertainment and our players' job is to entertain. If a five-day game is ending in just two days, it kills the game. An ideal pitch should be good for both batters and bowlers in the first two days and as the time progresses, it is bound to get deteriorated. The bowl should start turning from third day onwards and not like what it was in Chennai and Ahmedabad. They were like agricultural fields. It was very difficult for batsman to score runs and survive. It is quite unfair for both the teams.
Q. Most of the former and current Indian cricketers have defended the pitch reasoning that they too got green tops when they went overseas...
A. You must have noticed, pitches were seaming in Australia series. But the match didn't end within three days. A match should go on till the fifth day. In SENA countries, they may give you bouncy, greenish track on the first day, which helps the fast bowlers but as the game goes on, it is bound to slow down because they cut grass everyday on the pitch. There was no question about grass here. There were none on the first day itself. India is creating a bad picture of our cricket.
Q. There always was a puff of dust coming off the wicket when the ball landed on the pitch.
A. It was not a cricket pitch. It was like a field to grow vegetables.
Q. Did you ever witness this kind of a wicket ever in your playing days?
