Kevin Pietersen Says ‘India Won’t Be Shy In Preparing Rank Turners’ For England Tests

Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen opined about the wickets that India will be preparing for the Test series against England. He said that BCCI won’t be shy in preparing something that spins.

The Test series between India and England will be played for two months and will conclude in March. It will be a five-match series, which will take place from 25th January in Hyderabad at the Uppal Stadium.

With the India vs England series just a few days away, one of the major talking points is about the kind of pitches that will be there. There have been some reports which suggested that BCCI will be making rank turners for the series to favour their team.

England team would be hoping that their batters put up a better performance than they did last time when they toured India. The Three Lions struggled a lot with the bat on their last tour and looked clueless against the Indian spinners.

It won’t be a surprise, that India prepares tracks that turn from Day 1. The visiting teams have struggled a lot in the Indian conditions

Since the last few years. Even Australian batters couldn’t get going at all as Indian spinners were all over them. India clinched the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by 3-1. But England is the only team that has defeated Rohit Sharma-led side in their home conditions. They achieved the feat during the 2012 tour when Alastair Cook was the skipper.

Kevin Pietersen played a huge role in the series. The batter’s best came during the second Test in Mumbai, where he scored 186 runs off 233 balls. England under the leadership of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, who haven’t lost a series, would be eager to replicate the performance of the 2012 tour.

Kevin Pietersen Says ‘India Won’t Be Shy In Preparing Something That Spins’ For England Tests

Kevin Pietersen however, isn’t sure if England spinners would be able to deliver in the series or not. Kevin Pietersen believes spin will dictate terms in the series. The former England cricketer also didn’t shy away from saying that India will be preparing rank turners, especially after the kind of pitches they got in South Africa. Writing in his column for the Times, Kevin Pietersen stated:

“So the question is, can England deliver with the spinners they have? That’s going to be what dictates the series. It’s gonna spin. I actually played in Vizag [Visakhapatnam] the other day. It spun and bounced in a T20 game!

“Given what happened in Cape Town the other week [India won on a pitch favourable to fast bowlers that was marked poor], they won’t be shy in preparing something that spins, and they will say, ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.”

During the South Africa tour, the pitches favoured seamers a lot and even the Cape Town pitch was rated ‘unsatisfactory’ by the ICC after the match was over within 2 days.

However, after that Indian skipper Rohit Sharma lashed out, saying that one shouldn’t complain when the pitches start turning from Day 1 in India. His comments might have been an indication about pitches India preparing for the Tests against England.