Indian fans panic after BCCI shares picture of the pitch at Basin Reserve ahead of the first Test

We are less than 24 hours away from the start of the two-match Test series between India and New Zealand. This will be the first time in six years that the Men in Blue will square off against the Kiwis in their own den in a five-day rubber.

Both sides are locked at 1-1 as far as the scoreline of the tour is concerned. While the Men in Blue humbled the Kiwis 5-0 in the T20I as series, New Zealand duly returned the favour in the three-match One-day International series by blanking the Indians 0-3.

All eyes are now on the two-match Test series and Indian fans are worried about the nature of pitches that the Kiwis will dish out in Wellington. And, there are fears were compounded even more when Team India’s social media handle shared the photo of the pitch that the curator at the Basin Reserve has prepared. The pitch bores the look of a green top and the fans have already started to fear that Team India has ‘no chance’ against the Kiwi bowling arsenal.

New Zealand pitches have often proven to be deceptive in the past few years. 

While they tend to seam and swing for the first couple of days, the dryness underneath tends to flatten it out substantially as the game wears on.

According to former Kiwi bowler Simon Doull, the issue with New Zealand is that the wickets and pitches are so flat that they have to leave a lot of grass on day one to make it a contest and to basically bring the bowlers into the game.

“So what NZ have worked around the last four-five years is that if we make it very green on day one, by the end of day two both sides should be bowled out and then we can have a second innings contest in the Test match and if you win the toss in NZ you generally bowl first in green, sort of friendly conditions and sides have been bowled out for under 300 regularly and then it becomes a second innings game,” he said as quoted by the Times of India.

That said, it will be interesting to see the amount of grass that the curator leaves and considering how the nature of pitch changes in the second innings, it will be interesting as to what the captains decide if they win the toss.

Here’s how fans reacted: