Shardul Thakur said The Oval pitch was “under prepared” and different from the surface they played on in 2021. India had won that contest by 157 runs in September 2021 with Shardul scoring a fifty in both innings. But on Friday, as Thakur copped two nasty blows to his arm, he didn’t have a positive assessment of the surface.
“The pitch is surely different. Last time we played the pitch was doing something and everyone knows if there is cloud cover in England the ball moves around.”
“As the game went forward last time and the team started taking rollers it became flat. But this time it was not anything like that. It was under prepared I felt going in to the game. Like we saw yesterday and today it was a bit up and down,” said Shardul who scored 51 runs.
Shardul and Ajinkya Rahane shared a valuable 109-run stand to take India to a fighting 296 run total in reply to Australia’s first-innings score of 469 in the World Test Championship final.
From one end, the ball took off after hitting length and the Australian pacers exploited that.
“If we see yesterday’s play also, pitch changed a little. Ball was hard and bouncing from odd length. With six wickets down on the board, not too many runs, under pressure, yes you would say the toughest hour though I have played handful of game but felt like welcome to Test cricket.
“There is an area from where the ball is coming up, there is a little grass around the crack and the length is such that batsmen can’t leave the deliveries easily. You have to play, commit because we saw today many balls kept down and I mean that is an area of good length, and I mean, that area is at a good length, a little short of length.
“So that’s the area where the batsmen can’t immediately see and leave the ball. You have to play it. And if it bounces from there then good luck for the batsmen. It was bouncing from the other end too – but from a bit behind, so the batsmen were getting time to adjust,” said Thakur.
With Australia taking a 296 run lead at close on Day 3, it looked tough for India to get a win. But Thakur remained optimistic.
“Cricket is a funny game. You can never say what is the right total, especially in an ICC final. One good partnership and you can chase down 450 or maybe more than that. We saw last year England chased 400 here and they did not lose too many wickets.”
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