Cape Town 'Chamatkaar' but Indore 'Bekaar'? Sehwag, others rally behind Rohit after he calls out ICC's hypocrisy
Virender Sehwag and Aakash Chopra had their say on the Cape Town wicket after Rohit Sharma had called out the ICC for its ratings of pitches.
The shortest-ever Test match in history featuring India and South Africa in Cape Town created plenty of buzz after the game ended as Rohit Sharma let it rip in a fiery press conference on Thursday. The India captain minced no words and called out ICC for its double-standards after 33 wickets fell inside five sessions at Newlands. Rohit blatantly addressed the issue, calling a spade a spade when he said that he and the Indian team have no issues playing on different type of surfaces around the world, but expects the ICC and the opposition teams to not create a fuss about Indian pitches, which has often been given terms such as 'rank-turners' and 'dust bowls'.
Last year, during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the Indore pitch on which the Third Test was played on was given a 'below-average' rating by the ICC. Even the Ahmedabad wicket on which the World Cup final was played was rated 'average', a decision that did not sit too well with many. As for the pitch used in Cape Town, no one addressed the elephant in the room until the second day, when Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar called it 'dangerous' and Pollock labelled the ground staff as incompetent, failing to put together a deck that is healthy for Test cricket. Rohit, as we all know, joined the discussion and even though he did not have anything bad to say for the pitch - he in fact, acknowledged the challenge – the India captain hoped no further fingers would be pointed on Indian pitches.
Rohit's decision was supported by several former cricketers, who rallied behind the skipper in his call. Rohit's former India teammate Virender Sehwag, in his typical fashion, posted a message on X, aptly exposing the same hypocrisy. "Aap karo toh Chamatkaar. Hum karein toh pitch bekaar (When you do it, it's a miracle, but when we do it, the pitch is 'poor') 107 overs - Test Match over. Also proves that if anything's there for the fast bowlers, we [India] are more threatening with our quality. Bumrah and Siraj were spectacular and a good beginning to 2024."
Sehwag's former India opener partner Aakash Chopra joined in. The ex-India batter, who took a shy dig on the matter on Day 1 of the Test by predicting a two-day finish, went at length discussing the pitch debacle on his YouTube video and passed his judgment at Rohit's little outburst.
Chopra asks the tough questions
"The big question is what is right and what is wrong. Rohit said no one should talk about the pitch and that the match referees should watch properly because if you felt the World Cup final pitch was bad, what sort of pitch was this? He is right," he said.
"My thinking is - Is this pitch right? Are the one-and-a-half to two-day-match turners prepared in India, right? We are trying to justify one extreme with another. The truth is neither this nor that is right. A bad pitch should be called bad, whether it is ours or someone else's."
Even Mayank Agarwal, Rohit's former opening partner, took a sky dig at the ICC, when he posted on X, "What if 20 wickets fell on Day 1 in India," aptly summing up the scenario. As Mayank pointed out, 23 wickets fell on the opening day, and three more on Day 2. A third day, as it turns out, wasn't needed.
