Eden Gardens pitch SURPRISE Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel as he says ‘We didn’t expect…’

India, resuming on 37 for 1, were bowled out for 189, before Ravindra Jadeja (4/29) and Kuldeep Yadav (2/12) left South Africa tottering at 93 for 7, an overall lead of just 63, with only skipper Temba Bavuma (29 off 78) offering resistance.

Morkel said the dressing room had not anticipated such rapid wear and tear on the pitch.

“Yeah, look, I mean, to be honest with you, even we didn’t expect a wicket to deteriorate so quickly… we all thought when we watched that first couple of hours that it was a good wicket, so it did deteriorate quite quickly, which was unexpected,” he said after the second day’s play.

It’s this unpredictability that’s what make playing in India challenging, he said.

“That’s the beauty sometimes of playing in the subcontinent… you need to be able to adapt and react to conditions quite quickly and that’s the sort of challenge that we’re facing here at the moment.“