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The drama has started. Well, we are just 24 hours away from the start of the most anticipated Border-Gavaskar trophy, but the game has started; the off-field game at least. There have been many talks on the Nagpur pitch ahead of the first test.
On the eve of Tuesday, media representatives saw ground workers working only on the right-hander's side of the pitch, leaving the left-hander's dry and un-nurtured.
Interesting treatment of the pitch in Nagpur. The groundstaff watered the entire centre of the surface & only the length areas outside the left-hander's leg stump & then rolled only the centre, stopping short every time they got to the good length areas at both ends #IndvAus pic.twitter.com/Myr2ZblqCg
— Bharat Sundaresan (@beastieboy07) February 7, 2023
Australia will have at least six left-handed batters in their playing XI and few of the media representatives present at the ground could not handle themselves from mentioning this as "cheating".
Former India coach and World Cup winner Ravi Shastri had some answers for that.
"That's bulls**t," Shastri said on SEN's Sportsday when co-host Kane Cornes mentioned the pitch as "pretty dry" and quoted as "cheating".
"It always happens, you get 15mm grass, 18mm grass or 12mm grass in different places around the ground …. at the end of this first Test, I'm sure there'll be someone who scores a hundred.
"If someone can get a hundred or 8o-plus on that pitch, they've played well and he will go and say, 'What's wrong with the pitch? You stay there, you apply yourself, your shot selection is good, you get runs'.
-But if you go out there and think you're going to smash every ball, good luck to you."
Read Also: IND vs AUS: Most Individual runs in each Border-Gavaskar Trophy
The former India head coach was in full support of the home team taking advantage of the home condition.
"So what? It's home conditions, do what suits you, both teams have to play on the surface, there's a match referee who is the boss, it's as simple as that.
"We never complained about pitches, in my career we never complained about a simple pitch.
"No excuses, just get on with it, lat the end of three days no one's going to get killed on that surface.
"The quality of the camera lenses is so good, they can make green grass look brown, that's what you expect in India, come on."
With all the noise outside the ground already, both the captains have chosen peace and said to focus on the game rather than the pitch.
Aussie leader Pat Cummins is all about "embracing the chaos".
"That's part of the challenge of playing away. Home teams want to win at home. In Australia, we're lucky we've normally got pace and bounce."
"Home match advantage, I don't think it's a terrible thing. It's another challenge and makes touring over here even harder when you know the conditions are custom-made for them."
