"Why are we happy with winning matches on such pitches?" - Aakash Chopra on Indian batters' poor returns due to rank turners at home

Aakash Chopra believes India playing home Tests on rank turners has played a huge role in their batters' poor returns in the last few years.

India suffered a 209-run thrashing at the hands of Australia in the World Test Championship (WTC) final at The Oval in London. The Indian batters dished out another underwhelming performance in the title decider, an area which has proved to be the side's Achilles heel over the last few years.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra attributed Indian batters' underwhelming returns since 2020 to the square turners they play on at home:

"The difficult pitches we make in India - it is a huge reason, that we are now playing on rank turners in India. The matches get over in 1.5 to 2.5 days. The match doesn't go to the fifth day at all. If it goes to the fifth day, it means it will be a draw."

The former Indian opener added:

"When you play on such pitches, you win the match, blow away the opposing team, but your batters also don't score runs. It has gone on for too long. All of us are okay with that. Why are we okay? Why are we happy with winning matches on such pitches? Winning matches is not everything."

Chopra feels Rohit Sharma is the only Indian batter who has the skill to score runs on such pitches. He reasoned that while the Indian skipper can play powerful sweeps and hit mighty sixes, the other batters want the ball to come onto the bat and rely more on timing.

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"I am not talking about stat padding only" - Aakash Chopra on why India should play on better pitches

Virat Kohli's only Test century in the last three years came on a placid surface in Ahmedabad. [P/C: BCCI]

Aakash Chopra pointed out that better surfaces allow batters to be among the runs:

"There are two advantages of playing on good pitches. First, your batters have the chance to score runs. I am not talking about stat padding only, that it was an extremely flat pitch and you stat padded and became happy by scoring a lot of runs."

The reputed commentator added that only runs can give batters the required confidence:

"I am asking how will you get the confidence. You will not get confidence at all if you don't score runs and you will get confidence at home only. This game is about confidence. In my opinion, we need to start playing on better pitches."

Chopra cited Ajinkya Rahane's example to highlight the importance of confidence. He pointed out that the middle-order batter scored runs in the WTC final because of the confidence he drew from his performances in IPL 2023.