Ahmedabad: India captain Virat Kohli has ruled out any mental scars for his side on the eve of the pink-ball Test match against England at Ahmedabad.
The last time India played a pink-ball match, the team were shot out for their lowest ever Test score of 36, in December 2020 against Australia. England too won't recall their last pink-ball match fondly as they were bowled out for 58 in New Zealand.
When Kohli was quipped if there is any mental scars for both India and England playing a pink ball Test, he said, "No, according to me, both are bizarre experiences for two quality sides. If you ask England the same question, do you think that you know, you could be bowled out of 50 again? Their answer probably would be no, because you understand that on that particular day, things just aren't meant to happen to certain way. Whatever you tried to do, it's out of your control and nothing seems to go right. And exactly what happened to us in Adelaide as well."
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Kohli, however, stressed that "Barring that forty-five minutes of bad cricket, we dominated that Test match as well. So we're very confident in terms of how we play the pink ball, even in Australia with the pitches were assisting their seamers, they were under the pump through that Adelaide game. And that forty-five minutes where we were just blown away. There was, there was literally nothing to do come back into the game with."
Traditionally, a day-night Test match is expected to assist seam bowlers, especially during the tricky twilight zone. And England captain Joe Root should bring his fast bowlers into contention for the third Test match, unlike the second Test in Chennai.
Kohli, however, said he is not bothered by the "strengths and weaknesses of England".
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"Not really bothered about what the strengths and weaknesses of the English team are. We have beaten them in their home as well, where the ball does way more and we have bowled them out every time. So we're not really bothered with that. It's just about playing well as a team. And yeah, there are many, many weaknesses in the opposition side as well. If you, if you are keen to exploit them, things can...if this seamer track is for them, it's for us as well. And we probably have, among other teams, the best bowling attack in the world. So we're not really bothered by what the ball might bring differently to the table. We ready for anything that comes out our way," Kohli added.
The third Test will be played at the newly renovated Sardar Patel Stadium, which has a capacity of 110,00 and with fifty per cent of that capacity expected to attend, rest assured it will be a noisy crowd for the next five days in Ahmedabad.
