India opening batsman Murali Vijay on Wednesday tried to play down the controversy surrounding the wicket on offer during India’s first Test against Australia at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune, which was handed a poor rating by ICC match referee Chris Broad, PTI reported.
Vijay termed the wicket “challenging”, a track which every cricketer should play on.
“Pune wicket was not poor. It was a challenging wicket from ball one,” Vijay told reporters ahead of the second Test in Bengaluru on Wednesday. “As cricketers, we need to play on such wickets sometimes rather than playing on flat tracks. Actually it is a good thing to play on wickets which test your character and technique,” he added.
The Indian batsmen had failed to apply themselves on a rank turner with the hosts losing the series opener by a whopping 333-run margin.
Vijay expects the wicket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium to be a good one but personally he is not fretting over the nature of the 22 yards.
“I go into the middle with an open mind and look to adapt according to the pitch conditions,” he added.
Vijay, however, was critical of India’s batting effort, especially their capitulation in the first innings.
“I personally thought bowlers did a great job (restricting Australia to 260 in the first innings). After conceding a big first innings lead, it was always going to be difficult. We did not play ourselves well,” said Vijay.
Vijay also said the team had spoken at length about went wrong in Pune
“We had a chat about it and we have been working on few of the areas where we could have done much better in the last Test match. We are looking forward to starting afresh and take all catches coming our way,” he said.
He said the trekking trip to the Western Ghats also helped team move on from the heavy defeat.
“[Team Bonding] Exercises like these gets you closer as a team. We have been on the road for a while now. So it was good to have a couple of days break, go for a trek and get some fresh air. It was fun,” he added.