Aakash Chopra criticizes extreme seam-friendly and spin-friendly pitches

Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has criticized the stakeholders for preparing extreme seam-friendly or spin-friendly pitches in recent times. However, Team India registered a seven-wicket win in the second Test against South Africa in Cape Town on Thursday, January 4. Notably, 642 balls were played in the game which was the least-ever in a Test that has yielded a result.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra agreed with Rohit Sharma’s views that pitches across the world should be judged with the same parameters as well. However, he further added that extreme bowler-friendly pitches anywhere need to be called bad.

“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,” Aakash Chopra added.

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“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,” he again stated.

Aakash Chopra also stated that one shouldn’t be happy if a five-day Test ends in only one-and-a-half days. He again added that pitches need to be better and that the contests should be skill-based and not luck-based as well. He also claimed that such pitches can’t even be termed challenging tracks.

“Let’s be honest, you cannot justify in any way that these are good pitches, whether it is Cape Town, Wanderers, Perth, Ahmedabad, Indore or Delhi. These are not even difficult or challenging wickets, they are luck-based pitches,” Aakash Chopra concluded. “The ball is going up and down, and moving sideways. The bowler doesn’t know which way the ball will go or how much it will turn. Some go straight and some turn, some climb and some stay low. It is not right.”