The 22 yards strip called 'The Pitch'

The 22 yards strip called The Pitch

Someone was telling the other day ‘A test match at Sharjah after long but again a dry typical Sharjah pitch and you can tell the result of the match on Day 1 itself‘. ‘Nothing other than a draw‘. Back here at the capital people talked about the low bounce pitch and many said why cant there be a sporting track. ‘This is spoiling test cricket when its already at the verge of dying. Look at pitches in Australia and England and South Africa‘. Agree. But to these fans or fanatics or just followers, I want to ask one question. What is not sporting in the track at Delhi and does pace men getting wickets early on a pitch means sporting? Doesn’t cricket have something called spin bowling or is it just that batsmen should get the ball right at where they can hit full faced?

Obvious answer to my question would be ‘that is why India is not performing any better outside the sub-continent’. But it’s a similar thing for the other countries as well when they tour the sub-continent. How many outside sub-continent spinners have actually succeeded in India, specifically, even though everyone say its going to be a spinners track once the pitch wears. A subconscious thought here would be how come Pakistanis have abundant quality fast bowlers in their bench even though they are also from the sub continent.

Hot topic of debate considering the current scenario is whether the pitch at Cape Town was that bad or is it that batsmen collectively failed. Clarke showed the way to play on a pitch which was never used for international games at least at this time of the year when the sun goes hiding. But none can guess about the carnage that happened on Day 2. ‘Players who grew up banking on such pitches as their routine, failed. Hence they say it’s the batsman’s fault as from the scorecard we can see that seamers flourished. Finally everyone concluded saying this is magic and this is test cricket. This again leads to the common misconception that turning tracks are to be termed bad (remember the aftermath of Sri Lanka versus Australia test match at Galle recently).

Cricket cannot start without the flip of a coin. A coin has two sides; probability with that will definitely be either a head or a tail; similar to this in sports we can either have a win or a loss; cricket is no exception to this. But test cricket is something special; as special as the world cup 2011 India-England tie; as special as the world cup 2009 Australia-South Africa tie. A draw here is not like an impossible occurrence of a coin standing in-between a head and tail but an integral part of test match along with a win and loss. Playing out the entire five days definitely brings out the best of cricket rather than getting a result under 4 days which is what test cricket is going towards and expected to go for its survival.

There is something for everybody on any pitch, I shall say. Didn’t Mitchell Johnson get his best ODI figures in Sri Lanka recently? Or say, Michael Clarke battle out an entire first day in the truncated test when all others bowed out too soon? And forget not, Chanderpaul’s century 5 days ago on a low or sometimes, literally, no bounce pitch. I’m not pointing out the individual’s attitude here but then their cautious effort to get out that needed support from the pitch. Haven’t we heard experts say that waiting and sticking to basics will reward? That is what needs to be applied on every pitch across the cricketing nations.

A good sporting pitch, theoretically, will be the one which provides a gentle seam for fast bowlers with occasional bouncers and one which gets that much awaited outside edge earlier in the day and ending with some kind of a good feel for batting on Day 1, a tight contest between batting and bowling on Day 2, none other than batsmen on Day 3, spinners beginning to show that they exist by using the roughness on Day 4 and on Day 5, the pitch totally crumbles showing that spinners have the upper hand and batsmen have to play for time.

If this theory is to be made practical then which ever team wins toss will always have to field first and 10 wickets will fall on the opening day. With this, test match will stand by its name – a dead rubber. Nobody will comment on any team not crossing 300 runs. This will be like a student writing a 3 hours exam and he tries to write till the last minute, till the last page, last line of the answer booklet.

Everyone knows such a thing cannot be practically achieved but then everyone wants a sporting wicket, just like everyone wanting to see Tendulkar play on every day and always.

A pitch to be sporting does depend on the soil, the weather at the time of play and also over a period of days prior to the start and the outfield. A fast paced pitch doesn’t mean that it will be raining boundaries. The pace of the ball is mostly controlled by the density of grass in the outfield. Also, the tilt of the land, say a hillside or a normal terrain, too determine the nature of the track.

It also depends on the batsmen and the bowlers. If a bowler knew on which part of the grass to pitch and which crack to use and if the batsman know to acclimatize playing front footed or back footed then there is no point in blaming or even crediting the pitch. So why Indians falter away? It’s because many doesn’t know the technique to play back footed on bouncing pitches and not all can be a Sehwag who plays rooted.

If everybody bowls well then we will not be praising Dale Steyn or James Anderson and if everybody plays like Tendulkar, none will be waiting for that 100th international 100 and similarly, not all tracks can be genuinely sporting. Else, we might not be praising Brisbane on the Boxing Day or Lord’s on an overcast morning or even may not wonder on the nature of the Chennai pitch on why CSK is unbeatable most times here.