Steve Smith will lead Australia again in the fourth Test against India in Ahmedabad in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Pat Cummins has not come back from home and hence, Smith has been given the captaincy duties. Meanwhile, he impressed everyone in the third Test as the Aussies defeated the home side by nine wickets.
Now, the Ahmedabad Test will kick off on 9 March 2023. Like all three matches, the pitch has been in headlines once again and now, ahead of the match, Steve Smith came up with a statement regarding it. He said that the Ahmedabad pitch might be the best batting wicket of the series.
“So yeah, there might be opportunities for bigger totals on this wicket.” - Steve Smith
While speaking to the reporters, Steve Smith said: “Obviously, the scores haven’t been big throughout this whole series. India scored 400 in that first Test match (in Nagpur), and Rohit (Sharma) got 100, and that 400 proved to be way too many. This wicket may be a little bit different. I just had a look at it. Perhaps it may not spin as much from the first ball or the first day, but I do think it will spin as the game goes on.”
“So yeah, there might be opportunities for bigger totals on this wicket. Looks like probably of the four wickets we’ve seen so far, potentially the flattest on day one. Having said that, I think it’s 38 degrees out there at the moment, it’s pretty hot. Looks like it’ll dry out as the day goes on,” Smith further added.
“We will wait and see, but in terms of the day before, it certainly looks like it’s likely to do less on day one than we’ve seen so far. On these wickets that we are playing on, the 70s and 80s are winning you games as we’ve seen. This one might be a little bit different, it might be that someone needs to make a bigger score and the par score might go from 200-250 to 450-500. I’m not sure, we’ll wait and see,” Steve Smith concluded. Hearing such statements regarding the pitch from the Aussie captain, fans came up and shared some funny tweets on social media.
Here are some tweets shared by fans regarding the statement from Smith:
Phir hum phas Gaye re
— Anish Chandrasekaran (@anish2tweet) March 8, 2023
Ahmedabad pitch after 2 days pic.twitter.com/F9Yjk5IRYI
— Wbhishek🇮🇳 (@AbhiManchare) March 8, 2023
Duck loading for Smith
— SK Rahul 🇮🇳 (@chwjqkqmqlmamjk) March 8, 2023
Ashwin Jadu laughing in corner
— Nobita (@Nobiita52) March 8, 2023
Koi isko jaake samajhao ke draw ke liye bnaya gya hai pitch
— 𝐌𝐮𝐣𝐚𝐡𝐢𝐝 ᶜʰᵘʰⁱ♡︎ (@Asim_my_icon) March 8, 2023
kal hote hote pitch change ho jaayegi same happened in one of the match in previous year..
— Sam (@cricketdrug) March 8, 2023
But u did not know about that pitch
— Pratik Chowdhury (@PratikRs45) March 8, 2023
Ruko Jara, Sabar Karo :P
— Ishaan Meet (@ishaanmeet) March 8, 2023