Team India negotiate with practice pitches ahead of the Melbourne Test

Melbourne [Australia], December 23 (ANI): As Team India navigates through a long, five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against Australia, it faced another challenge ahead of the fourth Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) as players negotiated with the practice pitches allotted to them

During the Sunday’s practice session, a delivery from pacer Akash Deep kept low and hit skipper Rohit Sharma on his left knee. While dismissing any concerns over Rohit’s fitness, Akash had revealed the low bounce on the pitch, saying that he felt that the practice surface was meant for white-ball cricket and kept low.

“Such minor wounds are not anything unusual when you are playing cricket. It is not a big concern. But I felt the practice wicket was meant for the white ball and was keeping low. It was difficult to leave. But there are no concerns at all,” the bowler had said as quoted by cricket.com.au.

With the series level at 1-1, both teams will be playing the highly-anticipated Boxing Day Test from December 26 onwards, with an aim to secure an all-important lead and an edge ahead of the final Test at Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG).

Reports from Australia suggested that India was practicing on wickets that had been used for the Big Bash and were a bit worn out from use. Pictures from the MCG showed what appeared to slightly worn out wickets on which the Indian team had been doing its practice drills

The practice wicket that had been marked for team Australia looked a bit fresher.

However, on Monday morning, the MCG head curator Matt Page clarified that fresh pitches are only offered three days before the start of the match.

“Yeah, so, for us, three days out, we prepare test match pitches for here. If teams come and train before that, they get what pitches we have had. So, today we are on fresh pitches. If India had trained this morning, they would have been on those fresh pitches. So, it is stock standard procedure for us, three days out,” he said.

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (vc), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal.