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Turf vs Hard Wicket batting

Maximas

Cricketer Of The Year
Having played almost all of my cricket on hard wickets I got called up into the second 11 for my club who play on turf pitches. Just wandering, as a batsman are there any adjustments I need to make or things I should keep in mind to make the transition successful?
 

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
Get forward
pretty much.

Significant benefit in standing outside your crease, too, if you're comfortable with that.

Otherwise just play normally and you'll learn for yourself what adjustments need to be made.
 

Burgey

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You'll probably find, unless the wicket is flint hard, that it won't quite come on as fast as a hard wicket, and of course there will be less bounce.

It's hard to really give definitive advice as the character of the wicket determines quite a bit.

If the wicket is a bit England top order (soft) you'll want to be a bit careful driving, as the ball can often hold up in the deck. On the plus side, anything short on a wettish deck tends to stand up and ask to be hit.

Good luck with thit mate.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, I played on turf a grand total of once - school cricket final - against a team who barely knew how to play cricket. Unfortunately all our batsmen were set up best to play on astroturf, and in taking one look at the opposition decided we had the match in the bag.

We're chasing 70-odd after I won the toss and fielded (in fairness, we'd won our previous 3 games on the strength of our bowling, but yep, I did a Nasser), on a pitch that looked like it had been transported directly from fifth-day Ahmedabad. I'm opening the batting (not through any semblance of skill, about 9 of our players thought they should be the number 3, so yeah). My dad's told me how turf plays compared to astroturf, and funnily enough the ball isn't bouncing all that much.

Opener falls early trying to hit the very mediocre opening bowler out of the attack, and I then proceed to watch batsmen numbers 3, 4 and 5 ignore all of my advice and play back to length balls, squaring themselves up in the process and being plumb lbw. We ended 3 runs short.

In my experience on hard wickets, my default action to a 'should I go forward or back' length is to go back. On actual turf, it is to go forward. And given turf is, by its very nature, more uneven than artificial pitches, I tried to avoid the typical 'swing through the line with hard hands while trusting the bounce' type of shots that often characterise park cricket batting.
 

ajdude

International Coach
Having played almost all of my cricket on hard wickets I got called up into the second 11 for my club who play on turf pitches. Just wandering, as a batsman are there any adjustments I need to make or things I should keep in mind to make the transition successful?
**** batting, just bowl spin, you'll turn them heaps
 

Daemon

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Always found it heaps easier to bat on turf compared to astro against pace but harder against spin. If the astroturf pitch is slightly wet though then it's really hard facing anything.
 

Maximas

Cricketer Of The Year
**** batting, just bowl spin, you'll turn them heaps
Good advice, I had to come in and face 15 overs on a greentop till stumps and fell 2 overs short, despite everyone here telling me to get forward I kept getting caught on the crease, surprised I lasted as long as I did tbh.

Thanks for the advice everyone
 

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
Whatever you see on pitch reports on TV - disregard them when it comes to reading turf wickets at club level. All turf wickets in NZ have generous green grass on them - however at club level bowlers can't exploit it so they play pretty flat anyway.

Even though you have already played your game I will chime in for others who may be interested - as a bowler you just can't bowl short because the ball will just sit up waiting to be smacked. As a batsman 9/10 times you can't take a good length ball and just smash it back over mid on or mid off like on astro turf, the ball will hold up and deviate before it gets to you.
 

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