India will now be scared of preparing turning pitches, says Sourav Ganguly
Sourav Ganguly believes that India should take a lesson from the first Test debacle and prepare more sporting wickets in the remaining matches of the Australia series. Citing the 2015 Galle loss after which India had made a comeback series win, he said India can bounce back in this series as well.
Proving a lot of predictions wrong, Australia's spin duo of Steve O'Keefe and Nathan Lyon outperformed their Indian counterparts to help the visitors win their first Test in India after 14 years. Praising the accuracy of Australian spinners, the former India skipper said that India would now be scared to prepare turning pitches in the remaining three Tests of the series.
“The difference between the earlier teams and this Australian team touring here was the accuracy by Steve O'Keefe and Nathan Lyon. If Australia's spinners keep bowling so accurately, India will be scared of preparing turning pitches," Ganguly told India Today.
"India must have been surprised with the way Australia's spinners bowled. It's not the first time India prepared turners. They believed their own spinners were more accurate than the Aussie spinners. The way the two Australian spinners bowled will make India think for the rest of the series," he added.
Last time, India had lost a Test was in August 2015 in which a memorable performance by ageless Rangana Herath helped Sri Lanka register a come-from-behind win. Despite the loss in the first Test, India bounced back strongly to win the remaining two matches and won the three-match series 2-1. Ganguly believes that India can make a similar comeback in the ongoing series as well.
"India will come back and do well. He spoke about the Galle Test two years ago when they lost the first Test, Rangana Herath spun them out and they came back and won the series. This is a very good Indian side but my advice to them would be - don't play on these sort of pitches. Take the match to Day 5 as they did against England," he said.
Ganguly also hoped that the hosts would not leave winning matches to chance from now on.
"If India would have won the toss in this Test match the game could have been different. Don't leave it to winning tosses in Test cricket. Play on good pitches in Bangalore, Ranchi, and Dharamsala. Invariably these pitches would turn on Day 4 and 5, take the game until the end. Because when you prepare such pitches and the ball is turning square as a batsman you know your chances of scoring are very difficult. India's best chance would be to play on good pitches," Ganguly concluded.
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