The Indian pitches are known for supporting spinners as majority of the tracks in India are on the slower side and mostly we have seen the Indian spinners getting more wickets on these tracks but the Indian pacer Mohammed Shami holds a different opinion as he feels that it is wrong to say that the Indian pitches suit the spinners more than the pacers.
In the ongoing second test match between India and Australia which is being played at Arun Jaitley Stadium, the Indian bowlers have once again performed pretty well. There is no denying that in Australia’s second innings, it was spinners who ripped apart the batting line-up but in the first innings, the most successful Indian bowler was pacer Mohammed Shami as he dismissed 4 batters and the remaining 6 wickets were shared between Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, equally.
It was quite a surprise for everyone that Mohammed Shami took more wickets than spinners on a track which is slow and the ball keeps low on it but the pacer himself feels that there is enough for pacers as well on the Indian tracks.
While addressing the press conference after the end of the day one of the game, Mohammed Shami says that it is not correct to say that the Indian tracks don’t suit the pacers because all the pacers have come after playing in domestic level where they have learned to use the home conditions in their favor. He further states that recently in the domestic circuits also, the pacers have performed well and by keeping their focus on line, length and maintaining pace, the bowlers can achieve success in whatever conditions they play. Talking further about the Indian tracks, Mohammed Shami says that even if not anything else, the pacers will definitely get reverse swing on the Indian pitches.
He further talks about what team India thinks while playing any match, Shami says that as a team, they don’t depend on the toss and don’t give much importance to it either. As per him, they just try to perform well whatever they get to do first. He further says that the Indian bowlers have bowled out the opposition everywhere they have played, they have done it in the past and they will do it in the future as well. He adds that if not the pacers, then the spinners will bowl out the opposition.
As far as the match is concerned, the Australian team got all out at the score of 113 in its second innings and the Indian team was given the target of 115 runs for winning the match. Ravindra Jadeja was the pick of the bowlers for India as he took 7 wickets and the remaining 3 wickets were taken by Ravichandran Ashwin.
By the time this article was written, team India’s score was 88/4 and it needed 27 more runs to win the match.