‘Ye toh poora road tha…’: Kuldeep Yadav shares views about the lifeless Guwahati pitch

India’s premier spinner Kuldeep Yadav on Sunday compared the 22-yard strip at the Barsapara Stadium to a “road” due to the benign nature of the surface that allowed South Africa’s lower-order batters to take the team’s first-innings score to 489 in the second Test.

Asked about his opinion on playing at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, where batters struggled and here in Barsapara where it became a nightmare for the spinners, Kuldeep’s reply was laced with sarcasm. However, Kuldeep did maintain that one needs to show fighting abilities to counter adverse conditions.

“Kolkata ka wicket toh alag thaa. Yeh toh oora road tha (Kolkata’s wicket was different and this was a whole road). So it’s challenging and that’s why it’s called a Test wicket. It is not always about domination but it is also very important how you come back on a good batting surface. It was a difficult wicket for the bowlers because I didn’t feel that there was a lot of help in this wicket,” said Kuldeep.

Kuldeep Yadav was quick to point out that after the opening session on the first day, when some underlying moisture was still at play, there was no help for the slow bowlers in the last five sessions. He stated that there was no sort of turn on both the days when India bowled, and how he was talking with Ravindra Jadeja about the issue.

“Personally I felt yesterday first session, there was a bit of moisture in the wicket, so I got a little bit of turn there in the first session. After that it was very good to bat on. There wasn’t any turn yesterday as well as today. Today was much better to bat on because I hardly got any turn. Even me and Jadeja we have been talking about that,” he said with hints of frustration in his voice.