Bowlers being put to the sword over placid pitches - Opinion
To encourage high scoring contests, pitches across the globe have flattened out. One can think of the once tacky pitch at the Basin Reserve in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wellington-c864 or a Headingley in Leeds, which managed to give the bowlers plenty to look forward to. Sadly, when the
sun is out and the grass continues to thin, these tracks have become batting paradises. Low scoring games in the T20 era of cricket have continued to lose their market, with the bowling aspect of the game in severe jeopardy and being shunned away by modernists.
Cricket in truth, has never been a game which is supposed to be dominated by batsman. Depositing sixes out of the ground and scoring ridiculous totals of 350+ may be entertaining, but degrades the very essence of the game. It deprives the sport of an aspect
which has managed to fascinate its viewers in the past, where quality bowling could also win games. Encouraging good quality bowling; however, instances where pitches help provide an even contest, are slowly waning off into the distance. The advent of the
T20 format has become so integral to cricket that pitches which were tailor made for stroke play are often considered to be ideal in generating revenue.
The Cape Town Test in the recently concluded Test series between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 is an interesting case in point. Despite Test cricket being dominated by those sides who managed to score in excess of 4 runs per over, that particular game offered
some of the finest display of fast bowling ever. When South Africa was bowled out for 96 in their first innings, their passionate supporters believed that the game was all but over. Yet a supportive Newland’s wicket, which helped in giving ample space for
bowlers, saw an astonishing collapse by Australia to 47 all out. That particular Test match provided plenty of entertainment from the other department and kept on see sawing in a manner high scoring games have also managed to do so.
The key is thus to support the development of ‘cricket wickets’ or pitches which always have something for the bowlers. With scores such as 700+ in the recent past materializing on the field, it seems possible that the bowlers who were bowling to the batsman
and relied on seam and lateral movement off the track had wondered where their lengths went wrong. There were times in the ODI game where the likes of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754, with his thrifty medium pacers managed to win games single handedly for their
sides. What is seen nowadays however, is that if a bowler lacks pace, there are plenty of opportunities for scoring and scoring big.
In years gone by, a score of 250 in a fifty over game could prove competitive if a side had a good bowling attack. Nowadays, with drier tracks, 250 are usually considered to be a formality, unless the defending side’s spinners come in handy. Yet this fact
relies heavily on the tracks which are made around the world. Some pitches still offer plenty of opportunities for bowlers as well as batsman, which helps in curbing the brazen flow of runs. Flat tracks and bone dry placid pitches however, almost always act
as a spoil sport for bowlers who aim to exploit what little they have. The margin for error is already slim, where a slight detraction from the corridor of uncertainty can prove to be suicidal. Thus, instilling a wee bit of grass on the pitch to promote an
evenly contested game is not a bad idea.
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