Key Points
- Cricket fans erupt over pitch doctoring claims.
- Australia is playing India in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Nagpur.
The discussion on the pitch triggered after an Adelaide-based cricket journalist Bharat Sundaresan shared pictures of the groundskeepers working on specific areas of the pitch on his Twitter handle.
According to Mr Sundaresan, who is in India to cover the Border Gavaskar Trophy, only the centre of the Nagpur wicket was watered and rolled while the area where bowlers will target left-handers was left dry.
The images of the pitch sparked a theory that the Indian curators were conspiring against Australia's left-handed heavy batting line-up, sending experts and fans into a spin.
Australian former cricketer and commentator Simon O'Donnell said the International Cricket Council (ICC) needs to intervene in the matter.
"If they think the pitch is not right, there'll be an ICC referee at the game, and the ICC will be watching this game.
"But there's so many when it comes to India, we have all of these discussions, and nothing seems to happen," he told SEN Breakfast.
Meanwhile, Indian cricket legend Ravi Shastri rubbished the pitch-tampering claims. He said it's just part of the hype surrounding the first Test.
"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," he said.
Fans spar over pitch issues
The war of words over pitch also got the attention of Australian cricket enthusiasts who felt India was looking to get a significant edge with their alleged pitch curating.
Indian fans, however, felt all the noise was much ado about nothing and that players from both sides would have to fight it hard to win the series.
Here are a few tweets:
Pacifying the fans, Indian captain Rohit Sharma urged them to focus on cricket rather than worrying about pitch issues.
"The last series that we played here, a lot was said about the pitches. Just come out and play good cricket, win the game as simple as that," the skipper said.
