Cook slams Kohli's assessment of pitch

LONDON: Former England captain Alastair Cook on Friday questioned Virat Kohli's stance on the Motera pitch and said the India skipper "defended the wicket almost as if it's a BCCI thing".

Disagreeing with Kohli's assessment of the third Test that ended with India crushing England by 10 wickets inside two days, Cook said batting was near impossible on the newly laid strip at the refurbished stadium in Ahmedabad.

"Virat Kohli's come out and defended the wicket almost as if it's a BCCI thing -- it cannot possibly be the wicket.

Yet it was so hard to bat on that. So hard," Cook told Channel 4.

"Take the wicket out and blame the batsmen?" Cook asked, referring to Kohli's assessment of the pitch that it's a "very good pitch to bat on -especially in the first innings".

"To be honest, I don't think the quality of batting was up to standards. We were 100 for 3 and bowled out for less than 150. It was just that the odd ball turning and it was a good wicket to bat in the first innings," the India skipper had said in his defence of the pitch after the match.