Melbourne, Dec 23: The Indian team has expressed dissatisfaction with the practice pitches ahead of the fourth Test against Australia here, blaming their variable bounce for the hit that Rohit Sharma took on his knee but MCG curator Matt Page has defended the tracks by saying that “standard protocol” has been followed.
Rohit developed swelling on his left knee as he tried to play a throwdown from support staff member Dayanand Garani and didn’t take further part in the nets on Sunday. The side opted not to practice on Monday.
It was learnt the skipper needed icing at night and the team think-tank held the used pitch’s uneven bounce responsible for the injury scare.
The Indian team had sent its training schedule two months ago but the MCG curator stuck to the standard operating procedure of giving a new practice track only three days prior to the Test match, which begins on December 26 in this case.
“So for us, three days out, we prepare pitches for here. If teams come and play before that, they get what pitches we’ve had,” Page told reporters about why India didn’t get a pitch that would resemble the centre strip.
“So today, we’re on fresh pitches. If we needed to play this morning, they would have been on those fresh pitches. Stock standard procedure for us, three days out. We do our pitches that we’re going to have for our Test match,” Page defended the move.
When asked if he has had the Indian schedule and BCCI had correspondence with Cricket Australia, he responded in affirmative.
“Yes, they gave us schedule. There has been correspondence between CA and Indian board and the extent of those conversations, I don’t know,” Page informed. (PTI)
