By: Drcricket7 Staff
India team was supposed to get a ‘little dusty track’ at the Wankhede stadium for the fifth and final ODI match against South Africa on Sunday.
According to the sources, the MCA was in the process of making a pitch that would eventually help the Indian bowling attack.”The Wankhede stadium pitch was supposed to be prepared like the one in Chennai,” an MCA insider told Drcricket7.
Quite contrarily, the pitch turned out to be an absolute belter. To make it worse, South Africa won the toss and their top-order destroyed the Indian bowling completely.
“The pitch didn’t behave the way it was expected. It was supposed to be dusty,” another source confirmed. Even the Indian team management had no qualms in expressing the lack of help to the Indian spinners from the Wankhede stadium track.
The visitors made a mammoth 438 during the series decider on Sunday and, in reply, India were bowled out for a cheap 224. With this huge victory at the Wankhede, South Africa won the ODI series by a 3-2 margin.
Prior to that, India had lost the three match T20 series to the Proteas by a 2-0 verdict. This is the second time in the South African series when the Indians didn’t get a track to suit their attack.
The first occasion, however, was when India lost a low-scoring T20 match in Cuttack. In that match, the pitch wasn’t unto the mark.
“Fortunately, all the ODI wickets were good and suited the Indian team well till the fourth game. Ideally, India should have finished the series with a 4-1 verdict in their favour before the Mumbai game, which didn’t happen,” the source insisted.
Truly so, that is because India had indeed lost two close ODIs from winning positions – the one in Kanpur and the other one in Indore – and that too by 5 and 18 runs respectively.
