"Those who talked about it didn't get runs" - Ravi Shastri bashes Ollie Pope for comments on Ranchi pitch

Former Indian cricketer and head coach Ravi Shastri has slammed England’s vice-captain Ollie Pope. The English vice-captain had spoken a lot about the Ranchi pitch and had expressed his concerns regarding the cracks. However, the match saw England batsman Joe Root score a hundred in the first innings of the match whereas Pope was dismissed for a duck in both the innings.

While doing commentary during the match, Ravi Shastri bashed Ollie Pope for his statement about the pitch and stated that he needed to play the ball, not the pitch.

Ravi Shastri bashes Ollie Pope’s comments on Ranchi pitch

Ravi Shastri said, “The pitch was called all sorts of planets before the start. And those who talked about it did not get runs. Ollie Pope was one. Don’t play the pitch, play the ball. Rohit Sharma will do that on Day 4.”

Ollie Pope changed the match for England in the first match of the series and played an innings of 196 runs in the second innings. Pope’s innings led England’s comeback in the match and helped them win the game by 28 runs. The English vice-captain also became the batter to get the highest individual score by a touring batsman in India.

Returning to the fourth IND vs ENG Test match, the pitch had plenty of help for the spinners, however, it wasn’t that much difficult for the batsmen to play on it. English spinner Shoaib Bashir picked up a fifer in the first innings followed by veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin in the second.

England were wrapped up for 145 runs in their second innings, wherein the Indian spin trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, and Ravindra Jadeja managed to pick 10 wickets within themselves. Apart from Ashwin’s fifer, Kuldeep Yadav picked up a four-wicket haul whereas Jadeja ended up with 1 wicket.

While India were set up a total of 192 runs to win in their second innings, openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma added 84 runs from 105 balls for the opening wicket. Rohit achieved a well-deserved half-century and played an innings of 55 runs from 81 balls. Jaiswal missed out on a fifty and got dismissed for 37 runs from 44 balls by Joe Root. After the dismissal of Rohit and Jaiswal, Rajat Patidar’s streak of low scores continued, and was dismissed for a duck. Patidar was followed by Ravindra Jadeja, who walked back to the dressing room after scoring 4 runs.

The biggest shocker of the match for India came in the name of Sarfaraz Khan, who got dismissed for a golden duck. However, Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel didn’t let another wicket fall for India and helped their team win the match by five wickets.

India gained an unassailable lead of 3-1 in the five-match series and also made necessary gains in the World Test Championship 2023-25 standings.

The pitch at Ranchi once again proved out to be a brilliant surface for the batsmen, pacers, and spinners and has shut the mouth of the critics talking about the inaccurate behavior of the Indian pitches.

The fifth match of the series will be played from March 7, 2024, at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala.