After being bored to death watching two test matches between India and Sri Lanka over the last week or so, it got me thinking about how lifeless pitches and bore-draw results are not good for the game. In the last few years due to the rise of the IPL, Twenty20 cricket is now probably the most popular form of the game with lots of people claiming Test cricket is too ‘dull’. With that argument comes another view that if cricket is to have a future that Test cricket will slowly be phased out with more One Day cricket being played.Although I’m a fan of Twenty20 cricket and the fact that it makes batsmen have to play their shots and that its all action every ball, I do feel that Test Cricket on its day is still the best the game can offer. Why would I say this? Well firstly test cricket requires a lot more concentration and tactics than the ‘bash-bash’ version of Twenty20. It’s also the purest version of the game and requires different kinds of play according to the game situation. Of course we love to see fine centuries and teams getting 350 runs on the first day of the test, but equally there’s something mouth-watering about a team trying to save a test match.
Of course in both situations you can have dire periods of play with there being nothing in the pitch for the bowlers and the batsmen being more worried about what variety of drink they’re be having a the next drinks break rather than worrying about the pace of the bowler. Equally it can also be dire to watch a team that has no chance of winning a game, just making sure that they don’t get out – only playing defensive shots when they need to. But still if the situation requires that, then credit to the batsmen for putting it in action, it’s not pretty but it’s effective..
Going back to the India/Sri Lanka test series that has been going on over the last week or so. The first test started well for Sri Lanka and they were on top early on grabbing 4 early wickets early on in first day’s morning session. Good batting from Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni got India back to terms with a score of 426 in their first innings.
Sri Lanka then went out and scored a mammoth 760 in reply with Tillkeratne Dilshan, Mahela Jayawardene and the lesser known Prasanna Jayawardene hitting centuries. India’s response was good and they saved the game by scoring over 400 as the match was called a draw.
The second test started great for India this time, and they had probably their best ever first day of a test match as they scored 417-2 wickets with both their openers Gambhir and Sehwag hitting centuries followed up. It was pretty easy batting for the hosts as they treated the likes of Murali and Ajantha Mendis - 2 of the best spinners currently in cricket – as if they were batting against my gentle off-spin in my back garden!
There was little in the pitch for either bowler and incredibly Herath grabbed 5 wickets as the Indian batsmen ‘collapsed’ at the end losing 6 wickets in the space of no time. It wasn’t a collapse as of such, as with the score over 600 there was basically no chance of a Sri Lanka win so the pressure was firmly of the Indian tail enders. At the time of watching the end of the Indian innings, I really couldn’t see the point of them batting as surley it would have made sense for Dhoni to declare as soon as the team reached 600 and try and get more time to bowl against the Sri Lankan batsmen who I feel wouldn’t struggle on the pitch.
To my surprise I was wrong as the pitch suddenly came to life with the Sri Lankan batsmen playing some poor shots and after being dismissed for a poor 229 followed on and lost the game with Harbajan Singh amongst the wickets. However even with this test having a ‘result’ unlike the boring last one, I couldn’t help but feel cheated with the state of some of the cricket pitches on the sub continent.
There was a little bit of criticism this summer during the decisive Oval test of this year’s Ashes series. Some Australian’s felt that it was slightly unfair that the usual flat batting-track pitch at the Oval was slightly ‘over baked’ in the sense that the pitch was set up in order to get a result. Whether that was the case or not, i don’t feel that England did anything wrong in that situation because they wanted the game to end in a result, and not just a bore-draw which is usually the case. Yes the pitch was a lot more difficult than it could have been, but that’s what test cricket is about – testing batsman out in conditions which they shouldn’t find easy. Making them work for their runs, according to my dad and the same should apply for bowlers..
..Which is sadly the case in some of the pitches in the sub-continent which have been doctored for batsman and the game only comes to life if you’re lucky by the fourth day of the test. It’s not just on the sub-continent in Asia where there some pitches that are dead, it’s in the Caribbean as well and there have been some really lifeless pitches, which has been highlighted in some ridiculously high-scoring draws in recent memory.
Cricket gets bad press because some periods of play cannot be exciting and Twenty20 obviously is great because it’s fast paced and you only have to wait a maximum of 3 hours to get a result. However it has been argued that there has been too much Twenty20 cricket played and where it was a nice luxury to have, in some situations the longer form of the game is being targeted because of poor games of cricket. It was good to see Sachin Tendulkar come out the other week and say that for him test cricket is still what motivates him.
Hopefully the future of the sport which is being heavily influenced from decisions made from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will be marked and controlled by the ICC, will make sure Tests are still valued highly. ODI’s and Twenty20 forms of the game do have their place and it’s good for the game to expand into other countries and make the sport stronger. The ICC need to keep the standards of the game up and the only way of doing this is to make sure that there are rules in place that kill these dead pitches once and for all.
Posted by Adam Dennehey - SportTrades Report Manager
State of subcontinental wickets in India have been poor for a while. Ahmedabad was a lifeless wicket where no result would have been possible had they carried for another 5 days even.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, wickets in India have been far better than the ones produced in Pakistan and Sri Lanka over the last decade. Sri Lankan wickets resemble the Indian wickets of the 90's 0 doctored for spin, while India wickets have this decade seen it being much better for people skilled in reverse swing. Remember that India beat Australia and England in their last 2 home series where Ishant and Zaheer respectively been the Man of Series.
I am overtly concerned with the lack of Test cricket India has been playing this year and the little they'll play next year than the wickets - which the Switch Hit programme on Cricinfo went on and on after one poor series.
125 years of Test cricket in Australia, but no finger spinner of repute from that country? Does it say something about their pitches? And no great spinners after cricket moved to covering pitches in England? What are we trying to prove here? That BCCI is grinding Test cricket to dust providing dull wickets for Test cricket? Sure they are no saints, but you can't kick them for every bad thing that happens in cricket!