The biggest topic of discussion before the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 was the Indian pitches on which the Aussies would be playing the 4-match test series but after the Nagpur test match, this discussion should come to an end as the Australian skipper Pat Cummins himself accepted that the pitch was not unplayable at all.
After losing the Nagpur test to India by an innings and 132 runs, Cummins appeared in a press conference and he accepted that though the Nagpur pitch was difficult to bat on, it was certainly not an unplayable one. This statement from Pat Cummins gave a chance to the Indian Twitterati to troll the Australian media especially the Fox Cricket which went on to allege that the Nagpur pitch had been doctored in order to help the Indian cricket team.
Here are some selected tweets:
Pat Cummins said, "the Nagpur pitch wasn't unplayable".
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) February 11, 2023
But Australian media before match discussing Nagpur pitch pic.twitter.com/k7t0ga6bhn
— Sarcastic Cowboy (@SarcasticCowboy) February 11, 2023
Just for the records – @MdShami11 scored more than any Aussie batter in 2nd innings. Oh, was that a different pitch ? 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
Come on Aussies, let’s scream and shout and let it all out.
— Rishabh Shah 🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@rishlee) February 11, 2023
https://twitter.com/yashhverse/status/1624338275455623173
https://twitter.com/_Kuldeep20_/status/1624339546371674114
Cummins is very balanced on & off the field. Handles his bowlers well on the field, rarely throws any of his players under the bus & is quite dignified off it. W for Australia after the embarrassment that was Tim Paine https://t.co/momg612MSm
— TakeADeepBreath (@DeepTake) February 11, 2023
Obviously …Hmne 400 bnaye hai https://t.co/AcgqEG4A80
— Gaurav tamta (@GauravVK22) February 11, 2023
Tell you what, Patrick off the pitch has been an immense leader.
Not sure what to make of his on the pitch captaincy because there was little scope for it and he seemed to do many things right. https://t.co/0CA7FOKrlc
— Archith (inactive) (@UtdArc) February 11, 2023
The Australian cricket team scored 177 runs in the first innings and Pat Cummins said that they would have loved to score 100 runs more in order to pressurize the Indians. The Australian captain chose to bat first after winning the toss and though few Aussie batters such as Marnus Labuschagne (49 runs), Steve Smith (37 runs), Peter Handscomb (31 runs) and Alex Carey (36 runs) got a good start, they were not able to convert it into big scores. He said that though starting is a tough thing to do, 3-4 Aussie batters looked pretty good and comfortable in the first innings.
For the upcoming test matches, Pat Cummins stated that those batters who got good start would need to find a way to convert them in big ones and the ones who failed to perform would have to find a way to play well.
The Indian spinners took 16 wickets out of 20 wickets in this match which clearly proved that the Aussies are having a problem in playing the spinners but blaming the pitch for their failure is certainly wrong. What do you say?
