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Wickets in the ongoing series have been drawing attention, not necessarily for the right reasons. Pune, which also hosted its first Test match, was given a “poor” rating, while the Chinnaswamy wicket in Bengaluru got a “below average” from the ICC match referee Chris Broad
On Thursday, the theatrics surrounding the Ranchi wicket came to an end. The Australian camp had yelled conspiracy by Virat Kohli and team while describing the Ranchi wicket; the chief curator—a pitch doctor—Shyam Bahadur Singh was accused of preparing three wickets for the hosts to choose from. On Thursday, when Ranchi made its debut as India's latest Test centre, it was Singh who had the last laugh.
As Steven Smith won the toss, chose to bat first and ended the day with Australia scoring 299 runs on board—losing just 4 wickets with Smith and partner Glen Maxwell batting on 117 and 82—there was no room for complaint left. The Jharkand State Cricket Association International Stadium Complex pitch—sporting dark red patches —turned out to be a batting boon on its first day of Test cricket.
Singh, before the match, described the pitch as follows: “The pitch will suit both batsmen and bowlers and will last all 5 days”. The wicket, finally chosen for the third Test match between India and Australia, was his baby. The Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) committee members had stayed away—allowing Singh to go about his job freely. He had taken inputs from former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who he believes has a “sixth sense when it comes to reading pitches” and has openly admitted to discussing and using the former India skipper's inputs while preparing the wickets at the stadium.
After the match, Smith gave his thumbs up to the wicket, saying that it is a good pitch. "The bounce was consistent, there wasn't much spin, and we will need as many runs as we can get in the first innings.” His teammate Shaun Marsh paying compliments to the wicket, saying that it played beautifully.
The Indian fielding coach R.Sridhar said, “It was probably one of the better batting days in the series so far. The pitch was nice and placid. It was a good deck and I thought there were a couple of good spells from Umesh—one when they were around 140 for 4. He was coming in hard and getting the ball to reverse slightly. And there was not too much of a pace on the wicket to try too many bouncers as well. It is a very good batting track on day one and we will see how it unfolds tomorrow.”
Wickets in the ongoing series have been drawing attention, not necessarily for the right reasons. Pune, which also hosted its first Test match, was given a “poor” rating, while the Chinnaswamy wicket in Bengaluru got a “below average” from the ICC match referee Chris Broad.
