England batsman Kevin Pietersen on Thursday said that the slow-paced pitch prepared for the fourth and final Test in Nagpur is the toughest he has played on as far as scoring runs in concerned.
"It's toughest wicket I have played Test cricket on in terms of scoring runs. I don't have a clue what the pitch will do later. Its playing pretty similar to what it did at the start of the day," said Pietersen after the first day's play.
Pietersen, whose 73 in 198 minutes off 188 balls is the top score in the tourists' end-of-day first innings score of 199 for five, said his team was in a reasonably good position but the runs doesn't mean anything until the game is over.
"Like I said after the runs in Mumbai, it doesn't mean absolutely nothing until the game is over.
"I think we are in an okay position. I don't know what that pitch will do later but it's slow. I think the key today was to try to bat as long as possible because I don't think that wicket is getting any better," said Pietersen.
The England batting stalwart sounded happy that his team had two seam bowlers to bowl on this pitch, as he thought it was very difficult to score runs off Ishant Sharma, the home team's lone pacer in the playing XI.
{{/usCountry}}The England batting stalwart sounded happy that his team had two seam bowlers to bowl on this pitch, as he thought it was very difficult to score runs off Ishant Sharma, the home team's lone pacer in the playing XI.
{{/usCountry}}"I think we are in a position of strength, if I am allowed to say that, as we have two seamers. I found Ishant incredibility difficult to play today," said Pietersen.
Jadeja, on the other hand, had claimed that the Indian team's strategy of playing four spinners, including himself as a frontline bowler, would pay dividends in the second England innings as they can use the bowlers' footmarks to extract spin more and more.