Indian batters looked comfortable in the first session at the Oval
The verbal spat between India head coach Gautam Gambhir and Oval pitch curator Lee Fortis has been publicised enough in the days preceding the final and fifth Test.
While it is not uncommon for pitch curators to be touchy about their work and the surfaces they created, it is more often that teams are critical of the pitch if things don’t go the way they wanted.
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Result-oriented pitches have become the norm over the course of the last decade in Test cricket, which meant things have become easy for batting in countries like South Africa, New Zealand, England and Australia while pacers have been able flourish on the sub-continental pitches in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka which have traditionally been flat or rank turners.
In the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, barring the third Test at Lord’s, pitches have been prepared for even battles as the batters got the upper hand on most occasions. The fourth Test at Old Trafford was a similar tale as Ben Stokes and Joe Root got big hundreds in the first innings with Ben Duckett getting out in the nineties. This was followed by India having three centurions in the form of Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar while opener KL Rahul reached the nineties.
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For the final Test, Fortis had prepared a green top which is unusual at The Oval after recording massive scores in the County Championship this year. Former India opener Sunil Gavaskar couldn’t help but take a dig at England and Fortis when he said that England don’t have a bowling attack.
England are missing captain Stokes due to a shoulder niggle while the heavy workload on Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse in the absorbing series had forced the hosts to rest all three strike bowlers and play Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue and spin-bowling all-rounder Jacob Bethell in their place.
“England don’t have any bowling left. Whatever wickets were there in the series, Stokes got them or Archer has got them or Carse did. This is why they got a green top so that that likes of Tongue and others can get some help,” Gavaskar said on Sony Sports on Thursday.
India were at 72/2 when the teams took off for an early lunch on the first day with Atkinson and Woakes getting the wickets of Yashsvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul respectively.
Atkinson was able to hurry the ball on to the Indian batters who have looked comfortable against the new ball.
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