England batter Ollie Pope gives verdict on ‘interesting’ Ranchi pitch for fourth Test

England vice-captain Ollie Pope has described the pitch for the fourth Test in Ranchi as “interesting” but believes this may favour the tourists after back-to-back defeats by India.

The playing surface in the Jharkhand capital 48 hours out from the first day of the penultimate match has cracks running down one side of the cut strip and was watered on Wednesday morning before being briefly left to bake under the sun.

A crusted top layer formed before the area was covered – all of which suggests some balls may explode off the ground and spinners from both sides are likely to be involved from the off.

India hold a 2-1 lead on pitches that have generally been slow turners, with the team that has won the toss coming out on top on all three occasions, but England are gearing up for lavish spin this week.

“It looks an interesting pitch, it doesn’t necessarily look like a belting wicket at the moment. It kind of looks like one half is good and there’s a lot of cracks on the other half.”

“If that does a fair bit like we expect it to having looked at it, it definitely brings us into the game, If it does spin from ball one, I guess it’s an even playing field. It takes the toss a little bit out of it as well. When the ball’s doing more, your best bet is trying to hit the bowler off his length and try and get him to not bowl where he wants to bowl every ball.”

Story by: George Opoku Boateng. gopokuboateng@gmail.com. Ahotor Fm. X-Prekese GH