West Indies great Vivian Richards has never been known to mince words.
Like his batting, his words have been always been direct and blunt.
He has come down heavily on England for complaining about the spinning wicket.
He even added that he wants to see a similar track for the fourth Test.
The third Test featured a pink ball and saw a dramatic collapse of the much vaunted English line up, two times in 2 days.
Axar Patel was devastating as he produced balls that that sometimes, didn’t turn and on other occasions, skidded through.
However, Richards felt that the pitch held no demons.
He stated that that batters need to prepare themselves for these conditions rather than complaining about the spinning conditions.
“I’ve been asked questions recently about the Test match that was played in India…And there seems to be a lot of moaning and groaning about the wicket that they were playing on,” Richards said.
“People seem to forget that if you’re going to India, you should expect that. You are going to spin land.”
“Spin in all part of the game, this is what a Test match brings. The Indian pacers have been brilliant over the past few years in terms of substance, wicket-taking ability and stuff like that.”
Even Ravichandran Ashwin has been vocal in his defence of the Motera pitch. He has even challenged the condescending tone of many journalists , asking them to define ‘a good surface’.
We agree with Ashwin and Sir Viv. Failure is a great opportunity to learn new and this is something, the English team can do well to remember.
