"Green Mambas"

[Starfighter]

Was there any specific time period when wickets with grass were more common?

From what I can see green wickets have always been rare in test cricket in comparison to dry ones. Seems to have been a thing for a long time amongst curators to make pitches flatter or drier for the highest class matches, and obviously Asia and the West Indies weren't turning out many greentops.

If we discount the tests, then from what I've read the late fifties to mid sixties in England, just after covered pitches became the norm. Groundsmen cut the pitch, but with another match going on next to it (County cricket was still six days a week at this point) they sometimes didn't/couldn't water or roll it, certainly not sufficiently. So you ended up with wickets that were might be green (and damp if the weather was) on top (but also often bare and dusty) and very doubtfully held together underneath, which were often very spiteful. Seam bowlers like like Jack Flavell, who was not extraordinarily fast or tall, were very difficult to face on such pitches.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

There were the odd occasions in Australia in the 70's where it was difficult to find a discernible pitch from a distance when the players weren't present. It made for interesting cricket though. The Windies went to lunch at about 125 for 6 on day one.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

That’s a healthy run rate if you ask me

126 at the stroke of lunch

 

[ParwazHaiJunoon]

Hope all of you are fine.

This is my first post on "BBC-Earthweb.net/forum" under the thread "Green Mambas"

I have very unique collection of Green Mambas' pics & videos. You will find them very interesting.

 

[Kirkut]

Nothing.
It's about the skill of the batsman, and their mental state. The pitch plays a role, but just having good/great batsman is far more effective.
Root on a fresh greentop right now would be better any day than Prithvi Shaw on a Chepauk-style wicket.

Also a lot depends on the quality of opposition's bowling attack. An average bowling attack would not make the best use of the greentop and an ATG attack would get batsmen beaten outside off stump repeatedly on flattest tracks.

 

[Kirkut]

The problem with judging pitches in a binary like this is that pitch composition are more complex than generic wisdom indicates. I'm not sure green = bowler friendly, dry = will progressively turn more actually works that often. Pakistani pitches are dry as anything but don't actually help spinners more as the match progresses and NZ wickets actually get flatter usually. And then every now and then a pitch like the first India v England test one pops up which even betrays ground specific stereotypes. I recall there being chatter that spin would play a vital part in the 2018 BG Trophy because of a drought but this was evidently not the case.

I'm not even sure cloud cover affects swing that much tbh.

Swing I believe has a lot to do with the type of the ball, the thickness of the seam and of course the wrist position of the bowler.

 

[Spark]

Hope all of you are fine.

This is my first post on "BBC-Earthweb.net/forum" under the thread "Green Mambas"

I have very unique collection of Green Mambas' pics & videos. You will find them very interesting.

View attachment 27443View attachment 27444
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this is superb

 

[Starfighter]

Also a lot depends on the quality of opposition's bowling attack. An average bowling attack would not make the best use of the greentop and an ATG attack would get batsmen beaten outside off stump repeatedly on flattest tracks.

That goes generally though. Most spinners from outside don't know how to bowl in Asia (bowl quicker to compensate for the slow surface, vary your pace more, use more sidespin and less topspin on average but vary your spin direction more, and bowl straighter, at the stumps). I think the recent NZ pitches, green on top but flat and dry underneath are the best demonstration of this in recent years. The difference between the NZ bowlers who bowl a full, almost half volley length and visiting bowlers using the slightly short length popular these days is always a little startling. ATG attacks are ATG precisely because they can make these adjustments or overcome the difference.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I don't think preparing green pitches for subcontinental touring sides is really a thing. It generally doesn't help the home team anyway, if anything it does the opposite and bridges the gap between seam bowlers from each side. For example if you have Steyn/Morkel/Philander against Lakmal/Welegedara/Mathews then a seaming green wicket helps Sri Lanka by making their bowlers a lot more dangerous. If you wanted to make the most of having Steyn & Morkel you'd want to prepare a flatter wicket that they would still be dangerous on but wouldn't give any help to the Sri Lankan bowlers.

If you really wanted to doctor a pitch against an Asian touring team what you'd do would be try and make it as fast and bouncy as possible. But I don't think we see that very often because it's not that easy to do unless your wicket conditions are already leaning that way, whereas if you're an Asian team wanting to doctor a pitch against England by making it a dustbowl you can manage that pretty easily.

 

[Blenkinsop]

In England at least there are fairly acute financial pressures to have Test matches last at least four days. So no-one is deliberately preparing green mambas. Last season was so wet though that it was all the ground staff could do to actually prepare a pitch at all.

 

[Chrish]

I don't think preparing green pitches for subcontinental touring sides is really a thing. It generally doesn't help the home team anyway, if anything it does the opposite and bridges the gap between seam bowlers from each side. For example if you have Steyn/Morkel/Philander against Lakmal/Welegedara/Mathews then a seaming green wicket helps Sri Lanka by making their bowlers a lot more dangerous. If you wanted to make the most of having Steyn & Morkel you'd want to prepare a flatter wicket that they would still be dangerous on but wouldn't give any help to the Sri Lankan bowlers.

If you really wanted to doctor a pitch against an Asian touring team what you'd do would be try and make it as fast and bouncy as possible. But I don't think we see that very often because it's not that easy to do unless your wicket conditions are already leaning that way, whereas if you're an Asian team wanting to doctor a pitch against England by making it a dustbowl you can manage that pretty easily.

Depends on the side tbh. Current Indian batsmen play pace and bounce fairly well. And they also have bowlers who can exploit these conditions. So, it may not necessarily work.

Wicket with the seam movement is the way to go IMO.

 

[trundler]

I don't think preparing green pitches for subcontinental touring sides is really a thing. It generally doesn't help the home team anyway, if anything it does the opposite and bridges the gap between seam bowlers from each side. For example if you have Steyn/Morkel/Philander against Lakmal/Welegedara/Mathews then a seaming green wicket helps Sri Lanka by making their bowlers a lot more dangerous. If you wanted to make the most of having Steyn & Morkel you'd want to prepare a flatter wicket that they would still be dangerous on but wouldn't give any help to the Sri Lankan bowlers.

If you really wanted to doctor a pitch against an Asian touring team what you'd do would be try and make it as fast and bouncy as possible. But I don't think we see that very often because it's not that easy to do unless your wicket conditions are already leaning that way, whereas if you're an Asian team wanting to doctor a pitch against England by making it a dustbowl you can manage that pretty easily.

This is even more true on dust bowls. Michael Clarke can pick up 6-9 and Joe Root can look borderline unplayable. India or Pakistan are better off preparing pitches with low bounce and slow turn where Pujara or Azhar can bat and bat and bat and bat and then the spinners can come on to wreck some front pads.

 

[TheJediBrah]

This is even more true on dust bowls. Michael Clarke can pick up 6-9 and Joe Root can look borderline unplayable. India or Pakistan are better off preparing pitches with low bounce and slow turn where Pujara or Azhar can bat and bat and bat and bat and then the spinners can come on to wreck some front pads.

There's definitely logic there but it doesn't seem to happen that much. The only time I can recall when a dustbowl has backfired on an Asian team was 2017 when SOk took 12. Even the Michael Clarke 6-9 game India still won it (and it was the only game they won that series), the dustbowliness giving them more of a home advantage than any of the more tradition wickets that series gave them.

Basically I think it comes down to the relative skill levels of each team as to whether these pitch doctorings, whether dusty or green, end up helping. If you're a home team and the touring side is not as strong as you (eg. India v Aus 2017, or Aus v NZ Hobart 2011) then turning the wickets into a lottery doesn't help you, it just brings the weaker touring side into the game. Conversely if the side touring is stronger on paper (eg. Aus/Eng v Ban 2018, Aus v SL 2016, Aus v Ind 2004) then doctoring your pitches like this gives you a much better chance of beating them.