*Official* 3rd Test at the Sardar Patel Sports Complex, Ahmedabad, 24 - 28 Feb 2021

[Burgey]

TBH, a lot of CWers, national team fandom aside, are very bowler friendly. So its not surprising that such a pitch seems more fun to a good majority of us.

Its fun if you’re a neutral or you’re winning on it. It’s not much fun to bat on though

At least the player will have got four good nights sleep and will hopefully be rested for the next game.

Does renowned off spinning Allrounder Joe Root get dropped for the next game now, to ease his workload?

Dropped..

 

[Burgey]

The more I think of it, though, England seems like the only place where you can fathom two "away" teams contesting a final.

Probably also the only place where there’s realistically space in the calendar for it. Southern summer is very crowded for cricket

 

[Burgey]

So this was the shortest match by number of balls in post World War era

Thats an amazing stat

 

[SteveNZ]

You know what would be funny? If sometime in the future, India (or Pak who look like the only other semi-serious contender from the SC going forward) don't qualify for a WTC final held in India. Imagine two SENA sides slugging it out on one of these wickets.

The more I think of it, though, England seems like the only place where you can fathom two "away" teams contesting a final. Home team involvement *feels* far too integral to the dynamics of Test cricket elsewhere. Probably just conditioning and bias I guess.

That would be hilarious. I'm all in for a non-Asian game on a raggy pitch.

And you're kinda right as far as the last paragraph I reckon too. You do want to hold it where people are going to turn up and make it a spectacle for TV (COVID pending).

 

[Athlai]

Disgraceful

 

[jimmy101]

Is it true that this new stadium has a capacity of 150,000?

 

[Burgey]

Is it true that this new stadium has a capacity of 150,000?

I thought they said 110K or so.

Looks a great ground. Going to be amazing once it can be properly filled up. About the only downside to the facility I saw is something one of the comments on the thread picked up last night about the light filtering through the stands onto the field late in the day potentially impeding the fielders. I thought I saw one of the Indian fielders lose the ball for a moment as it tracked towards him on one of the three occasions England hit one off the square.

 

[White Ball]

Big problems for England now with selection! Do they go back to Bess? It’s not a given than Bess would do any better than Root and Root out bowled Leach today. Ali was a big miss for England in this game.

 

[centurymaker]

Fwiw I thought the Chennai wicket was fine and reasonable.

This pitch is not too dissimilar from Chennai, if not better for batting.

It was the hard shiny plastic PINK Ball that was causing havoc and deceived most of the batsmen with unexpected quicker straight on deliveries!

If this match had been played with a Red ball it would have lasted more than 3 days!

Even Root clearly identified that the extra lacquer and all the plastic covering on the Pink ball was the primary reason pitch become almost unplayable!

 

[Arachnodouche]

I thought they said 110K or so.

Looks a great ground. Going to be amazing once it can be properly filled up. About the only downside to the facility I saw is something one of the comments on the thread picked up last night about the light filtering through the stands onto the field late in the day potentially impeding the fielders. I thought I saw one of the Indian fielders lose the ball for a moment as it tracked towards him on one of the three occasions England hit one off the square.

There's also a ring of LED advertising between the two tiers, going right around the stadium. Can't be too easy collecting flat throws in/from the outfield.

 

[centurymaker]

Indian broadcasters will intervene now I think. I feel next pitch will be flat

Yeah the Indian broadcasters and everyone with their money tied up into this will be so furious right now, I cannot see how the pitch won't be a ROAD next week.

I fully expect a high scoring game , broadcasters have lost a lot of revenue here! And India don't need to win so they won't be opposed to it either!

 

[Burgey]

There's also a ring of LED advertising between the two tiers, going right around the stadium. Can't be too easy collecting flat throws in/from the outfield.

I think this is an issue at the new Perth Stadium too. they also run it around the middle tiers of the SCG stands save the Members and Ladies. You'd think they would set it to switch off as the ball is in play, but there's a lot of dough in signage at grounds I guess.

 

[jimmy101]

Reminds me of similar problems with Marvel Stadium due to the lights being positioned within the ground rather than external towers.

 

[Daemon]

This pitch is not too dissimilar from Chennai, if not better for batting.

It was the hard shiny plastic PINK Ball that was causing havoc and deceived most of the batsmen with unexpected quicker straight on deliveries!

If this match had been played with a Red ball it would have lasted more than 3 days!

Even Root clearly identified that the extra lacquer and all the plastic covering on the Pink ball was the primary reason pitch become almost unplayable!

You’re right about the ball but not about the pitch. The extra film didn’t result in the inconsistent bounce we saw in the very first over and the giant BMC style crater forming on the landing area.

 

[_00_deathscar]

So, England’s tactics then.

England batting first innings, India bowled just 11 overs of spin (some of which were pity overs by Kohli to Bumrah to clean the tail)
Basically we had a few early pace overs but then quickly realised its spin that does the trick here.

So having literally paved the way for England, England decided to give their pacers (including Stokes) a whole 27 (!!!) overs to bowl against India in India’s first innings. For a sum of 1 wicket (and a very heavy ER - Anderson and Broad did ok but Stokes and Archer went for 6.33 and 4.80 for 8 overs).

 

[Daemon]

Tough to blame them. It wasn’t immediately obvious that spin was the only way to go.

 

[honestbharani]

Its fun if you’re a neutral or you’re winning on it. It’s not much fun to bat on though

True and I definitely do think this was a bad pitch. Don't wanna repeat those points but we do have to consider the effect of this SG pink ball which apparently comes on much faster than the red one. Ultimately, day night cricket on a turner is still an unknown, we have only had grassy wickets for them till this one and there are all these other factors too, like dew. Ganguly is intent on having one day-night test per season though, so think they will get right soon enough.

 

[honestbharani]

I think this is an issue at the new Perth Stadium too. they also run it around the middle tiers of the SCG stands save the Members and Ladies. You'd think they would set it to switch off as the ball is in play, but there's a lot of dough in signage at grounds I guess.

Yeah, with these LED things you can have as many sponsors as you want, unlike the old ones where once the hoarding or whatever went up, that was that. They may even sell prices differently for the ads that go up during the overs Vs the ads that go up during the breaks. lol.

 

[honestbharani]

You’re right about the ball but not about the pitch. The extra film didn’t result in the inconsistent bounce we saw in the very first over and the giant BMC style crater forming on the landing area.

The landing area is definitely an issue but I think while this pitch had inconsistent turn, inconsistent bounce was very very rare. Then again, we only had 2 days. And Gill was keeping out some pretty low kept balls towards the end there.

 

[jimmy101]

Soon enough all ads & hoardings around the ground will be computer-generated, so hopefully that will fix the problem.