THOSE 22 SACRED YARDS

Cricket lovers all over the world have their favourite players, favourite teams, favourite teams and favourite captains. What they also cherish is their favourite cricket ground. Having watched cricket in four continents I have to say that I am unable to choose the best between two great sporting arenas – the Eden Gardens in Kolkata and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Down Under. But this blog is not about these stadiums and their festive atmosphere. It is about something much mundane, their pitches, the 22 yards on which the glorious game of cricket is played. While the Eden pitch after being relayed in 2015 is no more a spinner’s paradise but a sporting one for all – batsman, spinners and pacers, the MCG pitch is a strip with a few concerns.  

Big venues have multiple pitches so they can be used for different matches during a season, during which they will host Shield matches, Big Bash games, limited-overs internationals and a Test, the showpiece event. So to find three to ten playing strips in a stadium, besides the practice pitches, is not uncommon.

The complain about the MCG pitch was that it was too boring, too hard and did not deteriorate as the matches proceeded, becoming a soul-destroying "road" for bowlers. It’s curator Matt Page tried to inject some extra life into the pitch. In December 2019, before a domestic Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and Western Australia he watered it, but it seems he went too far. When the ball hit the moist pitch on the first morning, it created divots, which hardened under the sun into an uneven surface. The ball then reared up unexpectedly into the helmet and body of WA batsmen Shaun Marsh and Marcus Stoinis, respectively. Play was abandoned for the day, then called off the following morning after the pitch was deemed unsafe.

Now the historic Boxing Day Test match is to be played between the Trans- Tasman rivals Australia and New Zealand on the same pitch and so it has become perhaps the most scrutinized stretch of grass in Australia. This Boxing Day, the eyes of the cricket world will be trained on the turf as much Australian and New Zealand teams. Another problematic pitch and my favourite MCG's reputation will take another hit! Let’s keep our fingers crossed!!

So what is an ideal cricket pitch?

This is a difficult question because cricket today is not one but three games and pitches for all the three – Test matches, One Day Internationals and T20 need to be different as the very nature of these games are vastly different. While the latter two need to be high scoring to be entertaining and attractive, a Test match is Cricket in its most classical mould, the art form! A Test match pitch changes over the course of a Test. It is scheduled to last five days, favouring the bowlers at some stages and batters at others. Just as the most artfully bowled cricket balls are designed to change and degrade over the course of a match, defining how the ball behaves, so too are changes in the pitch pivotal. On the opening day, it should offer pace and bounce, and potentially swing or seam movement for the fast bowlers. A bouncy pitch conducive to sideways movement can also help spin bowlers. The surface should also be "true", allowing batters to trust the trajectory of the ball and play their shots, having survived the early onslaught from the quicks.

During days two and three, the pitch should dry out and deteriorate slightly but be in its optimum condition for batting. This is the time to cash in and pile on the runs. Come day four, the foot-marks created by the fast bowlers as they follow through should become more prevalent, creating a patch of "rough" near the batting area.

Days four and five are when the spinners should have their chance to shine, aiming the ball into the rough, where it grips and turns off the pitch. The team that bats last has to negotiate these tough conditions, which can create a mesmerising contest if they are trying to win or save a Test against a world-class spinner. The deterioration can also help fast bowlers because it can make for uneven bounce and, as the ball gets older, reverse swing.

Types of Cricket pitches

Some teams have genuine fast bowlers and some have crafty spinners and as it is the prerogative of the host team to choose the pitches traditionally pitches in England and Australia have been green tops, ideal for speedsters like the WAKA pitch in Perth and Headingly in Yorkshire.  Some teams rely on spin as their main weapon and so pitches in the Indian sub-continent show early cracks and break easily. There are however 4 types of cricket pitches:

Dusty

A dusty pitch features loose sand or clay, providing slow bowlers with encouragement to extract spin and bounce but frustrating fast bowlers. These type of wickets were typically found on the sub-continent, such as in Mumbai and Chennai when India played with four spinners Bedi, Prasanna, Chandrashekher and Venkataraghvan.

Green top

This surface generally assists fast bowlers by helping the ball's seam grip and produce movement, making it difficult for even the best of batsmen to score, particularly in overcast conditions and/or if the pitch has been left to sweat under covers when there has been rain. There are not too many seen in world cricket. They are generally found in England, where they can become “graveyards” for batsmen, and Australia – WACA in Perth and Belierive Oval in Hobart. These pitches have high clay content and hence are hard and don’t crack easily. So, balls come to the bat quickly and bounce is high. South African pitches have slightly more moisture. Hence, their bounce isn’t as high as Australian pitches.

Dead

This has been the MCG's biggest problem in recent years, for the lifeless drop-in pitches are up to 20 years old and have not offered any encouragement for fast bowlers or spinners. They may be suitable for Twenty20 matches, and even one-day internationals when high scoring is often the desired result, but it's these type of wickets that are ruining Test cricket. The problem at the MCG in recent years has been that the pitch has not deteriorated as much as it should. Nor has the ball bounced and carried, smacking into the wicketkeeper's gloves on the opening morning of a Test. Instead, it has been a "slow" pitch, with balls dying at the ankles of the wicketkeeper or even getting to him on the second bounce.

Drop-ins

These are grown and maintained in a tray outside of the venue and transported by crane when cricket season begins. Drop-ins were pioneered by Gabba curator John Maley during World Series Cricket in 1977, when Kerry Packer was unable to use traditional cricket grounds for his breakaway competition and had to turn to such stadiums as Waverley Park. Where the Sydney Cricket Ground and Brisbane's Gabba boast traditionally grown centre squares that become pitches when the football season is finished, the MCG, Adelaide Oval and Perth's Optus Stadium have drop-in wickets. Critics of drop-ins say there is sameness about them, and that they rob grounds of their individual characteristics. For example, the SCG has traditionally been a spinning wicket.

Concern for M.C.G

 The International Cricket Council in 2017 announced a scheme which aimed to keep venues and curators accountable for doctored and sub-standard pitches and outfields, venues receive public ratings from the ICC match referees after every international game. Venues accrue demerit points for a pitch or outfield that is rated below average, poor or unfit. These demerit points are counted over a rolling five-year period and, if a ground accumulates five points, it loses the right to host international cricket for 12 months.  So one of my favourite cricket ground is in serious crisis of losing its Test status. This is both unacceptable and unimaginable.