Although the somewhat tacky pitches at the Motera in Ahmedabad and the Wankhede in Mumbai have drawn criticism, Morne Morkel, India’s bowling coach, expressed sympathy for the curators, saying that they had done their best to give strips.
Most Indian batsmen found it difficult to push the pace in Mumbai and Ahmedabad because the ball did have some grip on one surface and there was underlying dampness on the other.
“You know, credit to the curators for, like you say, so late in the season still producing wickets that are 200 plus surfaces. It’s a nightmare,” PTI quoted Morkel as saying.
In previous games, even Suryakumar Yadav took his time, and a free-flowing stroke maker like Tilak Varma had trouble getting going.
“I can think of it being a job of everybody wanting certain expectations of the fans, high-scoring games. There’s a lot of pressure on those guys. They put a lot of hard work into giving us the best surface that they can possibly prepare,” he said ahead of India’s Super Eight match against South Africa in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
For Morkel, predicting the appropriate surface is quite challenging.
“I still think till this day it’s very hard to say a wicket is going to play this way. I think we’re all always standing. We’ve got some sort of ideas. There’s moisture. It looks a little bit dry. It will hold or skid on. But in terms of controlling the wicket and saying this is how it’s going to play, it’s very hard to call that bang on. So that’s why, for me, it is so important that you have guys that can sum up the conditions quite well.”
Morkel didn’t fully address if the pitches are getting hard to bat on due to excessive use during the domestic season.
“And I think so far this tournament we’ve done that really well with batting and bowling. Bar the one game, the first game, I think it wasn’t a 200-plus surface. It was maybe a 170 surface, and we went out a little bit too hard at the start. But again, that was the learning. So every game there’s been learning so far, and I think that’s the beauty about this game, is that they will be learning from the surface every time,” Morkel said.
