Livid with the criticism that pitches for the ongoing series against South Africa are not sporting enough, Indian Team Director Ravi Shastri said there is nothing wrong with Test matches folding up in three days and the critics should "stop cribbing".
"Nothing wrong with it (pitches produced for the Test series). I would hope the one in Delhi is absolutely the same. I have no qualms about it," Shastri told ESPNcricinfo.
India have taken a 2-0 lead in the four-match series, the second game of which was a washout.
The series has been marred by a controversy on the tracks, dubbed excessively spin-friendly, even though the visiting side has not complained about them.
The final match of the rubber is scheduled from December 3 at the Ferozshah Kotla in New Delhi.
Shastri also rejected concerns about Test matches ending inside three days.
"Nothing wrong with that. It (Nagpur) was a Test match that was moving all the time. You compare this Test to the Test match in Perth, I would pay money for a ticket for this game, yaar. To hell with the five days. You go and sit for the last two days there." Shastri said those complaining about the pitches should understand that it is the lack of technique which is troubling batsmen, not the tracks.
"It just goes to show that with the amount of one-day cricket being played, the tendency to graft, the tendency to spend long hours at the crease is diminishing. It's only when you play on tracks like this that you realise that you got to spend time at the crease.
"And when you saw Hashim (Amla) and Faf (du Plessis) batting, you thought there was nothing in the pitch. It just goes to show there was an era earlier who would play on these pitches and people would get hundreds. Because they were prepared to go through the grind," he said.
The former Indian captain said batsmen who had the patience to apply themselves could have even scored hundreds on these very tracks.
"I think if someone had applied himself he would have got 80-odd, 90-odd, even a hundred. The way (Murali) Vijay was playing he would have got a hundred," Shastri said.
"(The pitch was) absolutely not (a problem). It's on both sides. Par for the course on this wicket was 275 or 250, which was more than enough.
"If you get up and reach there (to the pitch of the ball) and there is a surface like that you can play on it. You have to stop cribbing and get on with the job at hand.
