India head coach Rahul Dravid plays down pitch talk ahead of 4th Test against Australia

Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], March 7 (ANI): India head coach Rahul Dravid delved briefly into the talk around the pitch ahead of the fourth Test against Australia in Ahmedabad and said that they need to be realistic about batting in these challenging conditions.

The fourth Test begins on Thursday in Ahmedabad with India aiming to book their place in the WTC final with a win.

Dravid said that challenging wickets were a “part of the game” with the talk around pitches raging after the Indore pitch for the third Test received a “poor” rating from International Cricket Council (ICC).

The home team’s head coach also played down talks around India’s batters struggling, maintaining that expectations have to be “realistic”.

“We have played on some challenging wickets when we go overseas also,” Dravid said in the pre-match press conference.

“[We] played in South Africa recently where spinners were completely taken out of the game. And everyone wants to produce wickets where eventually one wants results. You will probably prepare wickets where the ball holds a bit more sway over the bat and that’s necessary and part of the game,” he added.

With the top order struggling, India’s lower middle order has been responsible for the majority of runs in the series, but Dravid didn’t seem bothered by this.

“You need to be realistic as to what is a good performance on these challenging wickets,” Dravid said.

“So, you need to be realistic what the benchmarks are now, what standards are on these kinds of surfaces just one good performance can change the game. It might not be a double hundred but a 50-60 or 70 somewhere, but could actually be a very, very good score in some conditions,” he added.

India are 2-1 ahead in the series, but Australia’s stunning win in Indore in the previous Test saw them qualify for the ICC World Test Championship final and also proved that they could not only test, but also beat, India in these conditions.(ANI)