Former Indian cricketer blames turning pitches for Indian batters constant struggle Vs Spin

After India lost the 3-match ODI series against Sri Lanka 2-0, there has been a lot of talk about Indian batsmen facing difficulties while playing spinners. This was evident against Sri Lanka, where, apart from Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma, no other batter looked confident while facing Sri Lankan spinners on the turning pitch at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.

Throwing light on this recently, former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh has come in support of Indian batters, suggesting that the turning pitches in India are the reason behind their struggle while facing spin bowling.

After the Sri Lanka tour, the Indian team will be getting ready for the next hurdle, which is the ICC World Test Championship to be played in 2025. In this process, the Indian national cricket team will be playing a couple of home Test series against Bangladesh and New Zealand before traveling to Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Further, he also explained that this is done as part of the process to reach the finals of the WTC, as it's quite hard to play in the finals, resulting in the home side preparing pitches that suit their style of play.

He also mentioned that prior to the introduction of the World Test Championship (WTC), pitches were more balanced, supporting both spinners and batters. However, with the added pressure of making it to the WTC finals, pitches in India have become extreme turners, which greatly benefits the Indian spin attack.

"We've started playing on pitches that turn a lot more. We wanted to win and we did win but we won in two and a half days. I think, if we had produced normal pitches that started to turn from Day 3 and Day 4, we still would have won but the batters would have gotten time to settle in. We dented the confidence of our batters because anybody get out (cheaply) on those pitches," Harbhajan said on Sports Tak.

Meanwhile, before the start of the 2-match Test series against Bangladesh, the Indian cricketers will be seen playing in the Duleep Trophy to mark their place in the squad for the Bangladesh series.