T20 World Cup: India bowling coach Morkel defends ‘cheesy’ Wankhede, Motera pitches


India bowling coach Morne Morkel has thrown his weight behind the curators on the Wankhede Stadium and the Narendra Modi Stadium in Motera after the marginally cheesy surfaces at each venues sparked debate throughout the T20 World Cup.

The pitches in Mumbai and Ahmedabad haven’t been the standard belters many anticipated. On the Wankhede Stadium, there was underlying moisture, whereas on the Narendra Modi Stadium in Moterathe ball tended to grip, making stroke-play removed from easy.

Many of the Indian batsmen discovered it tough to power the tempo underneath such circumstances. Even free-flowing stroke-makers like Tilak Varma struggled to get going within the earlier video games, and Suryakumar Yadav needed to spend time adjusting earlier than accelerating.

Nonetheless, Morkel was sympathetic in the direction of the bottom workers, acknowledging the problem of making ready high-scoring surfaces so late within the season.

“, credit score to the curators for, such as you say, so late within the season nonetheless producing wickets which can be 200 plus surfaces. It is a nightmare,” Morkel informed the reporters.

The previous South Africa pacer identified that curators are sometimes caught between fan expectations and the sensible realities of pitch preparation.

“I can consider it being a job of all people wanting sure expectations of the followers, high-scoring video games. There’s quite a lot of strain on these guys. They put quite a lot of onerous work into giving us one of the best floor that they’ll presumably put together,” he mentioned forward of India’s Tremendous Eight match in opposition to South Africa on Sunday.

For Morkel, predicting how a floor will behave stays one of many hardest features of the sport.

“I nonetheless assume until this present day it is very onerous to say a wicket goes to play this manner. I believe we’re all all the time standing. We have got some form of concepts. There’s moisture. It seems just a little bit dry. It’ll maintain or skid on.

“However by way of controlling the wicket and saying that is how it is going to play, it is very onerous to name that bang on.

“In order that’s why, for me, it’s so vital that you’ve guys that may sum up the circumstances fairly effectively.”

Morkel didn’t instantly tackle whether or not the pitches are tiring attributable to overuse throughout the home season and turning into more and more tough for batting. As a substitute, he harassed the significance of adaptability and studying by the event.

“And I believe to date this event we have performed that actually effectively with batting and bowling. Bar the one sport, the primary sport, I believe it wasn’t a 200-plus floor. It was possibly a 170 floor, and we went out just a little bit too onerous in the beginning.

“However once more, that was the training. So each sport there’s been studying to date, and I believe that is the sweetness about this sport, is that they are going to be studying from the floor each time,” Morkel mentioned.

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Printed By:

Saurabh Kumar

Printed On:

Feb 20, 2026