IND vs AUS 1st Test: Australia's legendary batter Ricky Ponting has opened up on the Nagpur pitch debate. India and Australia are locking horns against each other in Nagpur for the opening test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The Men in Blue dominated the opening day of the contest as they scored 77/1 and trailed by 100 runs.
Meanwhile, former Australian captain Ponting has opened up on the Nagpur pitch and he expected the surface to play like this. “I expected today's wicket to play as it has. I got a look at it like everyone did a few days ago, and that's when all the talk started about the surface," he said in the ICC review.
The Aussie World Cup winner also went on to say that preparing spin-friendly surfaces was India's best chance to beat the Aussies. "But India's best chance of beating Australia is to prepare turning wickets. One, because our batsmen will find it difficult, but also because they would think that their spin bowlers are better than Australia's as well. And the fact that Australia are playing the two right-arm off-spinners here, one of those guys on debut. That's definitely where India have the advantage. So I can understand why it's worked out that way,” he added.
Ponting also said that the Australian players have no say in the preparation of Australian pitches. “The only difference I guess with somewhere like India to Australia is, I know in Australia the players actually have no say over how the wickets are prepared at all,” he said. “Unless things have changed the last couple of years, when I was playing, and certainly after I'd finished, the captains or anyone from Cricket Australia never even spoke to the groundsmen. You just left it up to the groundsmen to prepare the best wicket that they could. The beauty of playing Test match cricket in Australia is every venue's wicket is vastly different," he said.
The Indian team dominated on the first day of the Test match. The first day of the match showed glimpses of assistance to spinners as Australia were first wrapped up for 177 before India finished the day at 77/1. Jadeja was the architect of India's bowling as he scalped his 11th Test five-fer.
