England head coach Chris Silverwood accepted on Friday that the team’s batsmen had to learn to play better on tracks such as the one in Motera.

“We’ll be talking about certain things behind the scenes. But at the same time, we were really disappointed that we lost with three days of cricket left. We have to accept that we need to get better on these pitches. You look at the first innings, you’ll see we had an opportunity to score runs and make the best use of the pitch,” Silverwood said.

His admission was almost an echo of what many former England captains had to say.

Geoffrey Boycott, now 80, tweeted: “There is nothing in the rules that says what type of pitch should be prepared. We had first choice of the surface and they were better than us.”

Mike Atherton, a former captain-turned-columnist, too tweeted on similar lines: “I thought the pitch was very challenging but not unplayable.”

Kevin Pietersen was sharper in his criticism. “Yes there was definitely an overriding ball wins over bat in this Test match but it was a one-off. You are in the subcontinent. When you go to Perth, what happens there?” he told talkSPORT.

But former England captain Michael Vaughan, who has been extremely critical of the pitch, continued with his tirade.

“The longer powerful countries like India are allowed to get away with it the more toothless the ICC will look,” Vaughan wrote in the Daily Telegraph. “The governing body are allowing India to produce whatever they wish and it is Test cricket that is getting hurt,” he said.