India vs New Zealand: Kiwis taken aback by green pitch at Kotla

New Zealand are to play a three-day practice match against Ranji Trophy Champions— Mumbai. The Kiwis were expecting a spinner’s pitch to get into the groove but were surprised to see a green top at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. New Zealand management and players had a good look of the pitch, they were curious about the pitch provided and talked about it at length to curator Ankit Dutta. It can be easily concluded that Kiwi players were not comfortable practising on this pitch as spin has been their strong point in recent times. The first Test is to be played at Kanpur on September 22.

According to TOI, a source revealed, “However, they were pretty pleased with the practice pitches even though it didn’t take much turn. Chetan Chauhan also said, “We don’t take instructions from anybody. The host association is responsible for preparing good pitches. This is the first game of the season. That’s why the pitches are fresh and green.” The visitors have a strong bowling attack with leg-spinner Ish Sodhi, left-armer Mitchell Santner and off-spinner Mark Craig. They bowled with the new ball yesterday whereas fast bowlers Tim Southee and Trent Boult bowled with a slightly older ball.Doug Bracewell too practised reverse swing with both red and white ball.

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The Kiwis have been dependent on spin-bowling for quite some time and they expected a track like Nagpur where they thrashed India in ICC T20 World Cup 2016. ALSO READ: New Zealand to play warm-up game against Mumbai before India Test series

Heavy rain on Wednesday resulted in pitch and outfield getting wet, these conditions might play spoilsport in the warm-up game starting tomorrow. . “We will dry up the pitches soon. So we have asked the Mumbai team to come at 12 instead of nine in the morning. We will push the New Zealand team’s practice by a couple of hours,”  Chauhan added.