Criticism over the Newlands pitch in Cape Town continues, following the Proteas and India’s historic second test at the ground.
India defeated South Africa by seven wickets in a Test match that lasted only 106.2 overs and was completed in a day to level the series.
This as batters and coaches complained that the pitch conditions made life incredibly difficult to play a good game of cricket.
Proteas test coach, Shukri Conrad, who played for years with the Western Cape teams, said the wicket wasn’t great.
“You only need to look at the scores, you need to look at how they chased 80 (79).
“That was completely out of character. You gather all the information through either your experience having coached here, players having played here, speaking to various people and then you’re stuck up accordingly, and then everything goes out of the window. It wasn’t great, both the cricket and the wicket,” said Conrad.
Despite the problems, the coach had sympathy for the ground curator Braam Mong and his team and urged them to take all the criticism on the chin.
The coach also called for the team to improve in their third test series match against the tourists.
“But take nothing from India, they were superb. But you’re not going to win test matches scoring 50 odd, lowest total ever and we’ve got to own it, and we own it,” explained the coach.
Conrad’s comments were echoed by India’s captain, Rohit Sharma, who called for a fair review of Indian pitches, which he said receive more criticism when compared to pitches from other countries.
“I don’t mind being on pitches like this as long as everyone keeps their mouth shut in India and no-one is talking about the pitches there. Yes, it is dangerous, but you come here to challenge yourself and you must face up to it,” stressed Sharma.
Despite the difficult and challenging pitch to bat on, Proteas opener Aiden Markram scored 106 off 103 balls, to help the side to a total of 176 in their second innings.
Markram said he doesn’t know how he managed the score given the condition of the pitch.
“In terms of the track obviously it was quite challenging for us as batters, but both sets of bowlers bowled incredibly well and used the conditions pretty much perfectly.
“It was quite tough for us, but ultimately you got to try to find ways to do well on any sort of surface, but this one was quite challenging. On a wicket like that you need quite a bit of good fortune. I’m not too sure why I succeeded but you also need some good fortune on a wicket like that,” said Markram.
