India vs England: No demons in the pitch, says Rohit Sharma

Despite the third Test between India and England culminating within two days, Rohit Sharma has stressed that there were no “demons” in the pitch at Motera.

Rohit Sharma in action in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

Despite the third Test between India and England culminating within two days, India opening batsman Rohit Sharma has stressed that there were no “demons” in the pitch at Motera.

“If you look at the 30 wickets which have fallen. I don’t see anything the pitch did. It’s what the batsmen did. It’s not just them, we played horribly too. It seemed a normal pitch to me. Very typical Indian wicket,” Rohit said after India’s 10-wicket win.

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Poor shots

“We didn’t pick the right shots to play. No rough unlike in Chennai. England batsmen just missed the line against Axar, and we also played well below our skillet. We will be equipped to handle these conditions in the future.”

Rohit, whose 66 in India’s first innings was the highest individual score of the match, said the pink-ball resulted in the ball coming on to the bat quicker than it did in Chennai last week.

“It came to the bat faster than the red ball. It has got to do with the conditions in the evening. Temperature goes down and the dew too. Again, all in all, the pace of the pink ball is slightly faster. We need to adjust to that,” he said.

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While it is understandable that a winning team is unlikely to be critical of the surface, India’s spin duo of R. Ashwin and Axar Patel made optimum of the conditions. While Axar, playing only his second Test, returned a match-haul of 11 wickets, Ashwin became the second-quickest to 400 Test wickets on Thursday.

Brilliant Axar

Rohit had high praise for both the spinners. While he referred to Axar “coming out from nowhere and making it to the squad” and displaying match-winning performance in successive Tests as “brilliant”, he termed Ashwin as possibly “the match winner in Indian cricket history”.

“One of our match-winners or the match-winner in Indian cricket history. He has won so many games for us. Big congratulations to him. Great feat. Hats off to him. Also his contribution with the bat in this series can’t be forgotten,” Rohit said.