England coach Chris Silverwood has maintained silence on whether he or the England team management will raise complaint about the pitch at the Motera Stadium where the pink-ball Test was finished in jusy two days.
India beat England by 10 wickets in the only day-night Test of the four-match series. The surface attracted criticism from every corner for its bias towards spinners.
Silverwood, however, said that he expected the pitch to hold up a little longer.
“We expected that the wicket will hold up a little longer than it did to be honest, having looked at it. And equally, throughout training, using the pink ball. Looking back in history on pink ball Tests, the ball swung for us,” said Silverwood on Friday.
Only two out of 30 wickets in the Test went to pacers.
Both India and England lost 30 wickets inside five sessions and this was only the second Test in India to finish inside two days. The first one involved a weak and debutant Afghanistan side but here both England and India are among the top Test sides in the world.
Silverwood said he and Joe root will sit down to decide the course of action.
“We are disappointed that we sat here when there should be three days of cricket left. I am sure a few spectators are [upset] as well. Whatever the pitch did or didn’t do, India ultimately played better than us on it. But it pushed us to the extremes of what most of our players have experienced,” Silverwood told the media on Friday.
“Joe and I have to sit down, have a conversation and see where we go with it. We do have to get better on these pitches and we do have to accept there are places where we could have improved…I am not saying we’ve just got to accept things, I’m just saying at this moment I’ve not got anything to add. Not in a position to say what we should or shouldn’t do. It’s a conversation between myself and Joe at the moment.”
Even England skipper Joe Root picked five wickets as most of the wickets came off balls that held their line.
While former cricketers like Yuvraj Singh, Michael Vaughan and Alastair Cook have criticised the pitch, others like former England captain Mike Atherton defended it, saying that India applied themselves better.