It’s the cricketer, not the pitch

COMPLAINTS about the cricket pitches used in the Colonial Medical Super50 competition, which is coming to its exciting conclusion this week, are misleading and generally speaking, unfounded.The cricket played at the Queen’s Park Oval thus far has been mostly exciting and in the true spirit of cricket, impressive.

It never ceases to amaze me when coaches and commentators criticise the surfaces that the game is played on, mostly because it is not in their image and likeness. The beauty and art of the game unfolds on the various pitches (wickets) used for the contest and their variations add to the intrigue of the bat against ball.

And vary they must, as many elements knit together to enable a fair contest between two teams. In the Test match for instance, the wicket is prepared to last for five days, the proposed length of the game. When one-day cricket was introduced, the subsequent wicket provided, as it was just for the day, needed less moisture and less grass. It is supposed to be for the advantage of batsmen, on which to frolic to the disadvantage of the bowler.

However, ideal preparation depends on weather conditions and the hand of the groundsman. If there’s quite a lot of rain about, it would hamper plans that would have to be modified as the weather changes.

Nonetheless, back to the present competition. There has been very entertaining cricket and some close, intense games that had advantages swinging in favour of one team and the next. It never is clear to me why it is not obvious that if both teams are using the same pitch, as they must, then it is the better cricket side on the day that wins matches, not the pitches! It is how the bowlers, batsmen and fieldsmen apply themselves to the conditions that win games.

Now, with the introduction of one-day contests there was no second inning to recover, so that players had to perform well in the only inning they had. Although this took away from the drama and intrigue in the sport that only two-inning games could provide, yet the art of putting an innings together or starving the opposition from run-scoring enjoyed an excitement all its own, usually vivid and spectacular.

The close finishes in this Colonial Medical Super50 tournament games at the Oval are testimony to the fact of players’ abilities adapting to whatever skills are required to offer strong opposition to one’s adversaries. That is the highlight of cricket matches regardless of the format of the games. Of course, in its different presentations, for instance in a T20 and a Test match, the concept has to be adjusted to suit the change in time and number of overs.

For that reason the cricket pitch is interesting, absorbing and vital to the game of cricket, regardless of the format in which it is being played. That is cricket! And just try and imagine cricket games all being played on similar pitches, for example, using a concrete strip, where the delivered ball does nothing different or weird off the pitch, but has the same bounce with no deviation, the only disparity being the type of bowler.

The sport would never have lasted as long as it has, as it would have lost all interest to participant and spectator alike. The cricket wicket is the game’s most engrossing characteristic.

Which brings me to the other popular notion that is constantly repeated: “Fast bowlers would never develop on these pitches; they are too slow.” I ask these cricket pundits who have become drunk on the wine of those unforgettable memories of West Indies victories through the sheer brilliance of their fast bowlers: imagine the likes of Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding plus others like Ian Bishop, Curtly Ambrose, Colin Croft including Joel Garner and Tony Gray, bowling on those same supposedly slow, turning wickets at the Oval in this tournament. Do you honestly believe they would have been easy to play?

Holding, when he bowled out England at the Kennington Oval, London in 1976 capturing 14 wickets in the match, said to reporters after the game when asked to what he attributed his performance on that lifeless wicket: “When the wicket is dead you have to try harder.” It’s the cricketer, not the pitch!

Pitches are prepared for a variety of cricket games, and preparing them is an art, not a science, if only because of the various ingredients involved in the formulation, with no standard, set rules included because of the diversified elements implicated in its make-up.