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What makes a good test pitch?
- Thread starter Black_Warrior
- Start date
cnerd123
likes this
I would and have been in the past tbh. I also loved the England pitches which saw games end in 3 days.
Only pitches I have been critical of are slow and low ones like in the UAE and BD which turn the entire game into a boring to watch battle of attrition and lend themselves more to draws than results. And I say that despite supporting BD and being from the UAE, so...
Only pitches I have been critical of are slow and low ones like in the UAE and BD which turn the entire game into a boring to watch battle of attrition and lend themselves more to draws than results. And I say that despite supporting BD and being from the UAE, so...
Biryani Pillow
U19 Vice-Captain
English groundsmen do not prepare the pitches to order from the England team or management. They want a match that will last well into the 5th day and are very nervous if too many wickets fall too early as their employers (the County) will not be pleased.
And to describe the Trent Bridge pitch last summer as 'green' means you've never actually seen a green top. It had a little seam movement and some swing (due to atmospheric conditions). It was good, accurate bowling and rather feeble batting that caused a low score.
The ideal Test pitch should be:
Day 1: Good pace and bounce. Being a fresh pitch there may be a little moisture early on - this will prevent it breaking up too much later on. This might allow a some seam movement up to lunch on day one - that;s the risk of batting first if you win the toss.
Day 2 & 3: Maybe slightly less pace and bounce but it should still be there so, while batsman can 'trust' their shots if the bowler gets some movement they can benefit from it.
Day 4 & 5: Pitch starts to wear allowing for a degree of turn for the spinners, a little bit of inconsistent bounce isn't a problem for me here.
Such a pitch would test the skill of both batsmen and bowlers while, at various times, give them the chance to show their skill.
As bad as a massive 'bowlers' pitch is one where 600 plays 550 in the first innings.
And to describe the Trent Bridge pitch last summer as 'green' means you've never actually seen a green top. It had a little seam movement and some swing (due to atmospheric conditions). It was good, accurate bowling and rather feeble batting that caused a low score.
The ideal Test pitch should be:
Day 1: Good pace and bounce. Being a fresh pitch there may be a little moisture early on - this will prevent it breaking up too much later on. This might allow a some seam movement up to lunch on day one - that;s the risk of batting first if you win the toss.
Day 2 & 3: Maybe slightly less pace and bounce but it should still be there so, while batsman can 'trust' their shots if the bowler gets some movement they can benefit from it.
Day 4 & 5: Pitch starts to wear allowing for a degree of turn for the spinners, a little bit of inconsistent bounce isn't a problem for me here.
Such a pitch would test the skill of both batsmen and bowlers while, at various times, give them the chance to show their skill.
As bad as a massive 'bowlers' pitch is one where 600 plays 550 in the first innings.
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I don't really see how batsmen just surviving on a minefield isn't a battle of attrition to be honest.
Cabinet96
Global Moderator
My personal feelings on the perfect test pitch are that the 2nd innings should be the easiest to bat and 4th the hardest. Such a scenario would not make the toss too important and instead make it a matter of suiting the needs of your bowling attack (i.e. pace or spin).
Furball
Evil Scotsman
Hi there.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah but the margin of victory often doesn't saw much about how gripping or close the contest was.
For the first 2-3 days, those games were quite gripping. Plus you can't have everything. Not every game is going to be gripping and tight. Not even between two evenly balanced sides. In fact what is more common among two evenly balanced sides who are equally adept at the conditions (say South Africa-Australia or India-Pakistan) is one side will completely dominate one test match and then the other side will completely dominate the other test match. It is rarely in the same game that both sides wrestle for control.
Something like the South Africa-Australia 2014 series or the India-Pakistan 2004 series.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah but can you elaborate some of the pitch conditions that would have that? because everyone is going to say we want an even contest between bat and ball but what that would mean is going to differ from people to people.
Also we have to consider the physical and weather factors that influence pitches. There is a certain kind of 'good' pitch that English summer allows, which is not necessarily possible in Australian summer or Indian cricket season.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
You scratch my back I scratch yours.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
I think a lot of people would agree with that. That's a pretty traditional definition of a good test pitch. Now here is the interesting question.
You are the home team, and seam bowling is not your forte, and the opposition have some good to excellent seam bowlers. Now what do you do?
Did I get drunk and have a conversation I have forgotten? I have no earthly idea what this exchange refers to.You scratch my back I scratch yours.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
I think you were suggesting that ***** was getting furious because people criticised the Indian pitch, to which Furball responded that he is also furious despite not being Indian.
And I just made a tongue in cheek remark that they were colluding for obvious reasons
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
I think this really gets to the crux of it. I don't think curators are ethically required to prepare good pitches.
What makes a 'good pitch' comes down to subjective tastes and preferences more than anything else, but it's what makes an acceptable pitch that I think is really at hand here. To me, a pitch ceases to be acceptable if i provides too much of an advantage to the team winning the toss, if it's very unlikely to produce a result, if it's exceedingly dangerous to play on, or if it turns the game into too much of a lottery. A pitch would have to be held to a much higher standard for me to call it 'good', but most of that criteria would be entirely subjective based on what I like watching.
This thread was obviously inspired at least in part by the pitch in Nagpur. Whether that was a 'good pitch' in anyone's estimation is a subjective judgement that will be derived from what sort of cricket they'd like to see personally, but by the relatively objective criteria I set out above for a pitch being acceptable, it absolutely was IMO. India played much better cricket and they won for that reason.
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Well given I wasn't talking to or about Furball I am not sure the relevance of his input.I think you were suggesting that ***** was getting furious because people criticised the Indian pitch, to which Furball responded that he is also furious despite not being Indian.
And I just made a tongue in cheek remark that they were colluding for obvious reasons
Furball
Evil Scotsman
The thing is though, if every pitch in the world was this mythical "perfect pitch" then cricket would be pretty boring. Part of the charm of the game is that where you're playing the game dictates how you play the game. You expect the ball to nip about and seam or swing a bit in England. Hence why England specialises in producing guys like James Anderson who operate best in the 82-83 mph range, because that suits his home conditions best (although he can crank it up.) Australia has harder, faster, bouncier pitches, hence Australia having a pace battery of 90 mph guys. Go to the subcontinent and the pitches are more abrasive (hence the emergence of the Pakistani reverse swingers) and spinners become more of a factor.
What works in England doesn't work in Australia which doesn't work in India. Great players will adapt and thrive in all conditions, merely good players will only succeed in 2 out of 3 or 1 out of the 3 (inadvertent big 3 comparison here, cbf doing all 10 and those 3 are different enough.) Then of course, within each country you'll have variety (Gabba and WACA traditionally faster, Sydney traditionally suiting spin).
All of the above contributes to the rich tapestry of Test cricket. Think why Tendulkar's century in Perth at the age of 18 is so celebrated - it's because those conditions are about as alien as it's possible to get for a young boy from Bombay, yet he mastered them when his older, more experienced team mates could not. Bradman was supposed to fail the first time he set foot in England, yet he wound up with the record for most runs in both a Test match and series (the latter of which remains unbroken 85 years later). The variety of conditions around the world is something to be celebrated and cherished because it makes cricket unique.
Now onto the pitch that's caused such a furore. The reason I'm taking exception to a lot of what has been said is because people are mislabelling the pitch. For me, a pitch is good if it offers something to at least someone. Nagpur had plenty in it for the bowlers - yes, the new ball was less of a factor than it is elsewhere for the seamers, but a seamer with clever cutters or someone who can use reverse swing was definitely in business here as well - which as far as I'm concerned makes it a good pitch. I'd also call the Perth pitch a good pitch, somewhat controversially, because the Perth pitch at least had plenty for the batsmen - the old WACA cliche of getting full value for your shots certainly applied when you consider the speed at which Warner, Smith, Taylor and Williamson scored their runs.
Where both Nagpur and Perth have drawn ire is because you might not like the particular brand of cricket on display as the result of the pitch. Which I'm sympathetic to, I thought the Perth test was a bore fest because I hate watching bowlers toil away all day with the prospect of no reward while batsmen can just gorge on easy runs. Perth's only saving grace was the speed of run scoring meant that a positive result either way was still a possibility. Personally, a Test like Nagpur where the bowlers are always in the game is better to watch. And I've said my piece elsewhere, but I think a lot of people have just been guilty of looking at India's team selection, looking at the scorecard and clocking South Africa being bowled out for 79 and judged the pitch without watching the game. The dice were loaded in favour of the bowlers, but the batsmen still had the chance to roll double 6s. It's also worth remembering for the "how does this help India" brigade that the last time India tried a stunt like that in terms of pitch preparation (which there's nothing wrong with btw), it backfired on them because England had the better spinners and turned the series round. A win most certainly wasn't out of the question for South Africa (remember they don't have Steyn), particularly if they'd batted better. India would have been bricking it after throwing away a huge bunch of wickets on day 1 and only posting 215. That wasn't in their game plan.
The only pitches I'd call poor are pitches which are outright dangerous (which pretty much don't exist anymore) or a surface like Nagpur 2012 which offers absolutely nothing to anyone. The bowlers had to toil away for days to get anything on that one, but unlike Perth this year, the pitch was so slow and turgid that the batsmen got nothing to work with either. That just makes for junk cricket. It is those pitches that need to be weeded from the game, not a pitch like Nagpur which challenged and exposed batsmen from both sides.
Disjointed and a bit rambly, but I'm running late for work. Might clarify later.
What works in England doesn't work in Australia which doesn't work in India. Great players will adapt and thrive in all conditions, merely good players will only succeed in 2 out of 3 or 1 out of the 3 (inadvertent big 3 comparison here, cbf doing all 10 and those 3 are different enough.) Then of course, within each country you'll have variety (Gabba and WACA traditionally faster, Sydney traditionally suiting spin).
All of the above contributes to the rich tapestry of Test cricket. Think why Tendulkar's century in Perth at the age of 18 is so celebrated - it's because those conditions are about as alien as it's possible to get for a young boy from Bombay, yet he mastered them when his older, more experienced team mates could not. Bradman was supposed to fail the first time he set foot in England, yet he wound up with the record for most runs in both a Test match and series (the latter of which remains unbroken 85 years later). The variety of conditions around the world is something to be celebrated and cherished because it makes cricket unique.
Now onto the pitch that's caused such a furore. The reason I'm taking exception to a lot of what has been said is because people are mislabelling the pitch. For me, a pitch is good if it offers something to at least someone. Nagpur had plenty in it for the bowlers - yes, the new ball was less of a factor than it is elsewhere for the seamers, but a seamer with clever cutters or someone who can use reverse swing was definitely in business here as well - which as far as I'm concerned makes it a good pitch. I'd also call the Perth pitch a good pitch, somewhat controversially, because the Perth pitch at least had plenty for the batsmen - the old WACA cliche of getting full value for your shots certainly applied when you consider the speed at which Warner, Smith, Taylor and Williamson scored their runs.
Where both Nagpur and Perth have drawn ire is because you might not like the particular brand of cricket on display as the result of the pitch. Which I'm sympathetic to, I thought the Perth test was a bore fest because I hate watching bowlers toil away all day with the prospect of no reward while batsmen can just gorge on easy runs. Perth's only saving grace was the speed of run scoring meant that a positive result either way was still a possibility. Personally, a Test like Nagpur where the bowlers are always in the game is better to watch. And I've said my piece elsewhere, but I think a lot of people have just been guilty of looking at India's team selection, looking at the scorecard and clocking South Africa being bowled out for 79 and judged the pitch without watching the game. The dice were loaded in favour of the bowlers, but the batsmen still had the chance to roll double 6s. It's also worth remembering for the "how does this help India" brigade that the last time India tried a stunt like that in terms of pitch preparation (which there's nothing wrong with btw), it backfired on them because England had the better spinners and turned the series round. A win most certainly wasn't out of the question for South Africa (remember they don't have Steyn), particularly if they'd batted better. India would have been bricking it after throwing away a huge bunch of wickets on day 1 and only posting 215. That wasn't in their game plan.
The only pitches I'd call poor are pitches which are outright dangerous (which pretty much don't exist anymore) or a surface like Nagpur 2012 which offers absolutely nothing to anyone. The bowlers had to toil away for days to get anything on that one, but unlike Perth this year, the pitch was so slow and turgid that the batsmen got nothing to work with either. That just makes for junk cricket. It is those pitches that need to be weeded from the game, not a pitch like Nagpur which challenged and exposed batsmen from both sides.
Disjointed and a bit rambly, but I'm running late for work. Might clarify later.