'India showed you can score runs on it' - Joe Root delivers his verdict on Chennai pitch

England skipper Joe Root has weighed in with his views on the pitch used for the recently-concluded second Test against India in Chennai. A lot has been said and written about the pitch right from the start of the Test. Several pundits including Michael Vaughan, David Lloyd, Mark Waugh and Alastair Cook slammed the pitch which assisted spinners right from day one.

More than the spin, it was the unpredictability of the pitch that came under fire as the Test ended well inside four days. England’s top and middle order collapsed like a pack of cards as India thrashed the visitors by 317 runs to draw level in the four-match series. The latest defeat is England’s heaviest-ever defeat in India.

Chasing an improbable target of 482 on a deteriorating pitch, the Joe Root-led side were all out for just 164. In the first innings, England’s performance was even worse as they managed only a paltry 134 in reply to India’s 329. As far as India are concerned, they scored 286 in the second innings with skipper Virat Kohli (62) and Ravichandran Ashwin (106) showing that one could get runs on the pitch with the right application.

It was a challenging wicket: Joe Root

Unlike the Indian batsmen, the England batsmen failed to apply themselves on the pitch. Speaking about the track after the game, Joe Root admitted that it was a challenging wicket. At the same time, he pointed out that India showed one could score runs on the pitch. He praised India for finding ‘a way of managing a very tricky surface’.

“I would say it was a challenging wicket. The toss was an important one to win. But it wouldn’t have guaranteed a victory. The fact is that India showed you can score runs on it. They found a way of managing a very tricky surface,” said Joe Root in the post match press conference.

“You’ve got to learn from that. We’ve got to take bits from it, add it to our own game and come back better. They (conditions) are very different to what a lot of our guys have experienced before. It might not be that another Day 2 pitch may spin as much as this one. But it may be Day 3,4, or 5, where it becomes a bit more challenging. Hopefully, guys will learn from it,” he added.

Speaking further about the pitch, Root revealed that he and his teammates were a bit surprised with the bounce the surface offered. Root himself fell to a delivery in the second innings that bounced viciously after landing near the good length region.

“(Ball) Probably bounced more than what we had anticipated. But, we need to take that forward, take it as a learning and make sure we are better for it the next time we experience such conditions,” concluded Root.