E-Paper
Off-wicket: Eden caught between rain, Pujas
KOLKATA: If not for the ball that scuttled him, Virat Kohli looked good to get more than a fifty. If it hadn’t been for the delivery that shot up to take out Shikhar
KOLKATA: If not for the ball that scuttled him, Virat Kohli looked good to get more than a fifty. If it hadn’t been for the delivery that shot up to take out Shikhar Dhawan’s thumb, maybe he could have concentrated more on saving his career than grimace in pain. Wriddhiman Saha, who has played at Eden Gardens for almost 10 years now, had to take evasive action against a ball that suddenly rose from a crack to almost take out his head. He wasn’t spared in the second innings too. Yet the India captain said it was ‘a brilliant Test wicket’. “It was a lovely Test match, a brilliant Test wicket. Apart from the variable bounce here and there, it will get better and better,” said Kohli on TV moments after winning the series 2-0. His counterpart Ross Taylor too was far from critical. “To be honest, we thought the pitch would be different. A good cricket wicket, it’s just been re-laid and is going to get better and better,” said Taylor. Even BCCI president Anurag Thakur, during an informal interaction with attending journalists, said that it was a good day of Test match. Having won the Test, Kohli would have little reason to complain. And generally cricketers refrain from criticising the pitch, for it might be viewed as an excuse for non-performance. But something had gone wrong with this pitch.
