“A couple of balls did keep low in the first innings itself. We expected it to get slower. But we were not expecting the variable bounce”
Paras Mhambrey
India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey appeared pretty flabbergasted with the crumbling nature of the Ranchi pitch and went on to mention that the low bounce of the surface had raised quite a few eyebrows in the Indian camp as a few of their batters failed to adjust to it.
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“From what we have seen out here, generally, the nature of the pitch is that it gets slower as the game progresses. We expected that. But, to be honest, we didn’t expect it to play that low on the second day itself,” Mhambrey told the media after the second day’s play.
“A couple of balls did keep low in the first innings itself. We expected it to get slower. But we were not expecting the variable bounce.”
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He further went on to clarify that the team management did not ask for such a surface.
“Firstly, the venue is not something that we can control. The way the [Ranchi] pitch plays has always been similar. It has never been a rank-turner and I would not call this one.
“There was variable bounce. But I don’t think there were too many that spun sharply from the wicket. It was the variable bounce, on the lower side, which has made batting difficult. That is the nature of the soil. There were no specific instructions from us [to the curator] that we wanted to play on a rank turner,” he said.
India are presently trailing by 134 runs with just three wickets in hand. And with the prospects of batting last on the surface, the home team needs to play out of their skin to stop the Dharamsala Test being the series-decider.
Mhambrey, however, refused to look too far ahead. “What is important is that we have two set batsmen [Dhruv Jurel, 30* and Kuldeep Yadav, 17*] at the crease. We have a 40-plus partnership [42 to be precise] going. I think they have really applied themselves. The important thing is we get as close as possible to the English total and then we will see tomorrow.
“What we need to look at is, that we are going to chase. The target will differ but mentally we will have to be ready to chase. We have to bat well in the second innings, whatever the target is. Let’s keep it that simple,” Mhambrey added.
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