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- By Gurmeet Batra
- Sun, 16 Nov 2025 08:45 AM (IST)
- Source:PTI
India bowling coach Morne Morkel admitted his side was "surprised" by how quickly the Eden Gardens surface "deteriorated" after a dramatic second day in which 15 wickets fell and the opening Test swung sharply in India's favour.
India, resuming on 37 for 1, were bowled out for 189, before Ravindra Jadeja (4/29) and Kuldeep Yadav (2/12) left South Africa tottering at 93 for 7, an overall lead of just 63, with only skipper Temba Bavuma (29 off 78) offering resistance.
Morkel said the dressing room had not anticipated such rapid wear and tear on the pitch.
"Yeah, look, I mean, to be honest with you, even we didn't expect a wicket to deteriorate so quickly... we all thought when we watched that first couple of hours that it was a good wicket, so it did deteriorate quite quickly, which was unexpected," he said after the second day's play.
"It's this unpredictability that's what make playing in India challenging. That's the beauty sometimes of playing in the subcontinent... you need to be able to adapt and react to conditions quite quickly and that's the sort of challenge that we're facing here at the moment," he said.
Despite the pitch's behaviour, Morkel stressed India had prepared to back their strengths.
“We've got quality with seam and spin... we cover both bases. For us it's just a matter of what is in front of us and to play that as best as possible," the bowling coach said.
Morkel further said India had initially assessed the surface to be a “good wicket”, choosing instead to focus on their plans to attack the South African batting.
“The conversation leading up to the game was that it's going to be a good wicket and it's going to be hard work... so we planned more on how we were going to attack and target the South African batting line-up. We took the thought of the conditions out of the equation.”