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Ben Stokes, captain of the England cricket team©AFP
England cricket team captain Ben Stokes was taken aback by the pitch of the fourth Test match against India in Ranchi and said he had “never seen anything like it before”. The match that begins on Friday is a must for the visitors if they want to clinch the series, as they are currently losing 1-2 in the five-match series. In a recent interview, Stokes said he found the appearance of the pitch at Ranchi quite misleading as he felt it had adequate grass cover from a distance, but on closer inspection the all-rounder found that there were several cracks visible and may be a challenge for both the batting and bowling side.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before. I have no idea, so I don’t know what could happen. If you looked to one side of the opposite ends, it just looked different than what I’m used to seeing, especially in India. It looked green and covered in grass in the locker room, but then you came out and it looked different: very dark and brittle and quite a few cracks,” Stokes said. BBC sport.
England would not mind a change of rank in the fourth Test because assisting the spinners from the start will make it a level playing field, vice-captain Ollie Pope said on Wednesday.
The trials in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Rajkot had sports fields, which were not predominantly spin-friendly and had something for everyone.
“If you spin from the first ball, you take the pitch out of the equation, then the playing field is level,” Pope told reporters.
“Many times the wicket starts flat and then deteriorates. We won the first game by batting first, India the last two by batting first. It doesn’t define the result if you bat first on a slightly flatter wicket, but it gives you an advantage,” he added.
(With PTI inputs)
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