The question became all the more louder when Australia thrashed India by a massive 333 runs to take a 1-0 lead.
Pune's reputation was dented and days after the debacle, local authorities have pointed that there was 'external interference' for laying out a rank turner.
A report in the Indian Express stated that the Indian team management and a section of BCCI officials "hijacked the Pune pitch'.
The pressure of laying a turner was so much that even veteran curators of the BCCI pitches committee, Daljit Singh and Dhiraj Prasanna couldn't just do anything.
Both Prasanna and Daljit were reluctant in giving a nod for a rank turner but the BCCI officials and the Indian team management were hell bent in ensuring that the pitch is bone dry.
According to a Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) member, there had been pressure on them from a senior member of the team management to prepare a 'rank turner'.
The member stated that the team management had sent in the word a week before the Test.
And despite being informed that the Pune pitch would turn "spiteful" the Indian team management insisted on having a "bald" pitch.
"When the MCA refused to prepare a rank turner, the senior member of the team management took the issue to the state association curator Pandurang Salgaoncar. When he too resisted, the matter was placed before the BCCI curators (Parsana and Daljit), but even they were a tad reluctant. Then, the BCCI management (not the Committee of Administrators, the cricket board employees) came into the picture. The ground staff had been ordered to remove the grass completely. Things were hijacked from the local curators," the MCA member said.
The member further stated that the local authorities pleaded them not to tinker with the natural surface of the pitch but the team management weren't just 'bothered.'
"The Pune pitch has a mixed soil. This pitch was originally laid under the guidance of Karl Johnson from the New Zealand sporting centres of excellence. Even MS Dhoni had earlier said it is more of an English wicket. But the MCA knows how to prepare it. This pitch requires a little bit of grass and some moisture to last the distance. If you remove the grass completely, it becomes spiteful, while retaining its bounce. But these people were determined to have a completely bald surface," he said.
The member also revealed that the team management had been originally asked to give their demand for a turning track in writing and although that didn't happen the MCA has a record of the entire incident.
"The association told the team management that whatever they wanted to do, they should give it in writing. But nothing was given. No one makes such requests in writing. But the MCA has kept an internal record of the whole thing in writing; that on so-and-so date they got a call from Mr so-and-so and he said 'you prepare a pitch like this'," he said.
However, both skipper Virat Kohli and coach Anil Kumble didn't made too much noise about the pitch and instead put the blame squarely on batsmen.
On asking if the team management had given any specific inputs to the curator, Kohli said , "I don’t know. I didn’t speak to anyone."
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