Sanjay Bangar, Team India’s batting coach, has revealed the factor which is restricting the Indian cricket team from preparing for the South African conditions. The reason is nothing else but the Indian pitches on which the home team is currently hosting Sri Lanka for a bilateral series.
As per Bangar said in the post-match press conference on November 2, the Indian curators have been failing to provide the team management with pitches of their choice. “Team India demanded hard and bouncy wickets ahead of the South Africa tour but the country’s diverse soil and climatic conditions are not allowing the curators to do so”, stated Bangar.
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On being asked if the Kotla (Delhi) track is an ideal to prepare for the upcoming tour, Bangar said,
“Since we are a diverse country and as we hop from region to region, the nature of surfaces cannot be consistent. Even though we wanted to have a wicket with pace and bounce, with a bit of grass cover, the curators can only do as much because it all depends on nature of the soil, which is peculiar (he perhaps meant unique) to a particular region.”
Bangar went on to describe the difference in pitches of different cities. He said,
“A Mumbai wicket cannot be expected to play like a Delhi wicket and a Calcutta wicket to play like a Nagpur wicket. So that’s the beauty of cricket. You may want something but the curator is never able to give you what you want because of peculiar nature of the track and diverse conditions in such a vast country that we live in.”
The difference which Bangar spoke about in the press conference was clearly visible in the first two India vs Sri Lanka Tests. In Kolkata, the green top at Eden Gardens behaved critically under the overcast conditions. But at Jamtha, Nagpur, India went on to score 600+ runs and 4 batsmen came up with centuries on that flat track. And the situations look similar at Kotla as well where India is rooting for another giant score and so is Virat Kohli.
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(With inputs from PTI)
