England cricket group skipper Ben Stokes was shocked by the pitch for the fourth Test match towards India in Ranchi and mentioned that he has “never seen anything like that before”. The match beginning Friday is a must-win for the guests in the event that they wish to clinch the sequence as they at the moment path 1-2 within the five-match sequence. In a latest interview, Stokes mentioned that he discovered the looks of the pitch in Ranchi fairly misleading as he felt it has a correct grass cowl from a distance however on a more in-depth inspection, the all-rounder discovered that there have been a number of seen cracks and might be difficult for each the batting and bowling sides.

“I’ve never seen something like that before. I have got no idea so I don’t know what could happen. If you looked down one side of opposite ends it just looked different to what I am used to seeing, especially out in India. It looked green and grassy up in the changing rooms, but then you go out there it looked different: very dark and crumbly and quite a few cracks in it,” Stokes instructed BBC Sport.

England wouldn’t thoughts a rank turner within the fourth Test as a result of help to spinners from the phrase go will make it a level-playing subject, vice captain Ollie Pope mentioned on Wednesday.

The Tests in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Rajkot all had sporting pitches, which weren’t predominantly spin-friendly and had one thing for everybody.

“If it does spin from ball one, it takes the toss out of the equation, then it’s an even playing field,” Pope instructed reporters.

“A lot of the time the wicket starts out flat and then deteriorates. We won the first game batting first, India the last two batting first. It doesn’t define the result if you bat first on slightly flatter wicket but it does give you an advantage,” he added.

(With PTI inputs)