India vs England 3rd Test ended in just two days of cricket. England team was all-out twice in the span of two days. Naturally, the reaction from England fans was not very happy. Lot of experts also questioned the nature of the pitch at Ahmedabad. But some other ex-cricketers from England were in chorus to not put the entire onus of the English loss on the nature of the pitch.
Nasser Hussain wrote in a Daily Mail article that the England batsmen should have been a little more aware while playing defensive shots. He wrote: “There'll be a lot of discussion about the pitch, and the hasty decision-making of the third umpire, and so on. But that's for others to discuss. The bottom line for England is that they won a good toss, and collapsed from 74 for two to 112 in their first innings. In the end, that's what cost them the Test.”
Although Hussain’s tone was diplomatic, he asserted on the fact that England should have come up with a better plan to play the likes of Axar and Ashwin. While Hussain was a little hesitant, Pietersen was pretty straight-forward with what he wanted to say. He wrote: “The batting from both teams was awful! The wicket wasn’t horrendous! It’s just that the batting was dreadful! 21/30 wickets were from straight balls! Nothing dangerous!”
Geoffrey Boycott, who is usually a fierce critic of the Indian team also took to Twitter and wrote: “There is nothing in the rules that says what type of pitch should be prepared. We had first choice of the surface and they were better than us. Simple.”
Even Mike Atherton was critical of England’s fans to look at the Ahmedabad Test match.
The discussion will be around for some time but it is only obvious that we accept the result and move on.