| A whole issue that people have completely forgot
In the 2001 Wisden Cricketers' Almanac, David Green produced an excellent article about pitch preparation in which he shows that, from one-day cricket and counties' financial considerations, though they sound remote from the issue, are the root of the reason for complaints about pitches today.
Whilst I do admit I am being rather simplistic, Green shows that many of the complaints about standards of pitches relate to the tendency during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to prepare pitches to suit short of a length seam bowlers, which most writers in England believe (and none I have read overseas totally deny) and efforts by the authorities to establish extremely flat pitches as the norm for all first-class games.
Green shows that, in England, this has led to a serious decline in batting techniques. Whilst my ultra-sceptical, even cynical brother denies this, looking at someone like Brian Lara who has trouble when pitches give bowlers any help does make me think that batsmen of today are spoilt. As someone with a great knowledge of cricket history, I tend today to believe that the real solution, no matter how unacceptable it would undoubtedly be to authorities who emphasise one-day cricket so much, is to restrict or eliminate covering of pitches.
This would surely not only require much better technique from batsmen, but also eliminate much of the danger in cricket today because the incentive to intimidate rather than try to dismiss batsmen that covered pitches have been shown over the last forty-five years to bring would be eliminated when the elements are able to give bowlers more of a chance. Uncovering pitches would also eliminate much of the incentive for time wasting (again, it relates to intimidating batsmen) that has largely taken crowds away from Test cricket. In good weather, too, uncovered pitches were much faster than covered pitches and allowed for much freer scoring as well as giving the faster bowlers a chance.
Also, uncovered pitches would reduce a cricket authority's medical bill because the amount of wear and tear on players in much less.
There are two main problems with uncovering pitches:
- delays due to drying can mean little play after rain for some time. I do believe soil scientists today could certainly solve this quite easly, though
- outside England and New Zealand, much older soils mean uncovered pitches are both much more physically dangerous to batsmen and also likely to produce conditions under which the team that plays best does not win because of rain altering a pitch.
Nonetheless, all cricket watchers and authorities in England and New Zealand (and, perhaps, even elsewhere) really ought even today about whether covering of pitches serves to reduce the ability of Test cricket to draw crowds and compete with other sports. | 
Linear Mode
