Following the end of the Ranchi Test match, England captain Ben Stokes assured that he did not have complaints about the pitches used in any of the four games in the series.
After losing the first Test of the five-match series in Hyderabad, India won the next three matches in Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, and Ranchi to win the series.
The Ranch surface witnessed a bizarre Test match where the play was changed several times between sides and between bat and ball, often during the session.
England opted to bat and were dominated by debutant Akash Deep on the first morning, reducing the score to 112-5 by lunch. They bounced back and finished the day 302-7.
The next day, they increased their total to 353, reducing India to 177-7, but the hosts recovered to 219-7 and 307 at Stamps. They then beat England for 145 to reach 40-0 at Stamps. By the fourth morning he was 84-0, chasing 192.
However, England’s spinners attacked on both sides of lunch and India staggered to 120 for 5 without losing another wicket in the chase.
In the post-match presentation, England captain Ben Stokes declared he had no complaints about the pitch or any of the pitches. “As I said before the test started, I had no idea what it was going to do,” Stokes said. “I was once again very surprised at how it all ties together.
“I think the temperature changed the behavior of the turnstiles as the day progressed,” he said. “I think all four wickets were really, really good Test match wickets. We’ve seen time and time again that it’s very difficult to get players coming out and batsmen out and prevent them from scoring.
“But you know there are always going to be times when spin is a big threat. And these are the situations that people in India are used to. So, I have no complaints about the pitches that are being thrown out. I think it was a very good wicket and we got four results from four matches, so I can’t complain.”
India captain Rohit Sharma says if a batsman scores a few hundred balls [Joe Root] or 90 balls [Dhruv Jurel] or 150 balls [Root], you can’t call that pitch bad. he added. Jurel he was standing in front of 149.
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