Shoot the groundsman... or just give up on cricket?

[Rachael]

The first day of this second Ashes Test at Edgbaston has surely got to go down as the most depressing day of cricket the world has seen in many years... as the day on which we finally found out that World Cricket really doesn't have a SINGLE attack worth watching. OK, the leading light was injured.... but three senior bowlers with huge 1st team credentials and backed by a superb coaching staff (a} couldn't get anything out of the pitch; and {b} couldn't make a decent job of plan 'B'.

It's pretty clear the groundsman needs hanging, drawing and quartering for producing a quite disgraceful pitch lacking pace, bounce or movement.... but that being the case: why the **** wasn't a side that's supposedly competent able to work out that pitching the ball way outside off stump and erring on the side of too-short would allow even second rate stand and deliver merchants to swing their arms and rack up the runs.

I'm appalled at the pitch.. on which I suspect even Curtley Ambrose, Wasim Akram and Richard Hadlee would have struggled to give us a worthwhile contest and make a decent spectacle of the game... but at least one would have been sure that the batsmen didn't have room to swing their arms and that the day would have ended with the England batsmen having reached no more than 280-330.

I thought I'd go many, many years before I encountered a cricketing let-down to match the recent Indian batting capitulations to the Aussies on the subcontinent: on this evidence... it's been eclipsed already. Grrrrrr.

[cantplaycantalk]

Be fair the guy had a tornado and 3 inches of rain to cope with in the run up.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by cantplaycantalk

Be fair the guy had a tornado and 3 inches of rain to cope with in the run up.

Or to fail to cope with: if he'd failed this dismally in the other direction (i.e. a pitch that favoured the bowlers as much as this one favours the batsmen) the pitch inspectors would have been called in!

What depresses me is that at one time I think we could have pointed to 2-3-4 sides that might have coped OK on even this pitch: when Wasim & Waqar, Donald and Polock and Ambrose and Walsh were plying their trade and McGrath was starting out you had half the senior teams in world cricket looking capable of reverting to plan 'B' quite successfully once efforts to extract anything from the pitch had proven futile.

Ambrose going at 5-6 an over? Id on't think so.

Thing is... we've now reached a stage in world cricket where pitches like this are just a complete waste of time: we KNOW there isn't an attack in world cricket that can actually cope with such pitches... so their presence becomes ever less acceptable. Pitches these days HAVE to offer pace, bounce and movement... because the seamers just can't cope if they don't.

[cantplaycantalk]

Indeed in my day bowlers were real bowlers, men were real men and small green furry creatures from alpha centuii were...

I remember Walsh when he was just starting out and he was PANTS! The rest of the bowling attack were exceptional so they got away with it.

We will see just how flat the pitch is today with Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff and Jones bowling, IF they get carted then yep it is a flat pudding, if not then the English batsmen should be applauded for the attacking entertaining play.

[greg]

You moaned about the pitch at Lords and now Edgbaston.You can't have it both ways.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by greg

You moaned about the pitch at Lords and now Edgbaston.You can't have it both ways.

I never complained once about the Lords pitch... indeed.. I rated that as the perfect Test match pitch: good bowlers could test even the best batsmen.. poor balls presented scoring opportunities and anyone with poor technique or judgement could be found out.

A complete surprise at Lords.. which often seems to suck... but the best Test match pitch I've seen in many, many years.

[Maranello]

Seems a fairly good pitch today - decent contest between bat and ball so far, and only Ponting from the Aussie top 6 has dominated the bowling. Good thing we did not shoot the gardener yesterday, he seems to have done okay!

[Andy Mellon]

Yawn. I'm tired of hearing complaints that "Its just not test cricket!". As pointed out by cantplaycantalk, the groundsman had difficult circumstances under which to build a pitch, and slagging him off is not fair on him in any way.

[Lemming]

To be fair I'm thoroughly enjoying this match, it's an excellent contest between the two teams at the minute. The pitch is a bit of a feather-bed, but that's added to a good battle at the minute.

[Trescothick]

I think Rachael would prefer if they played on a dirt track where no-one could predict the outcome of any ball so theres no skill rather complete luck on how the ball comes off the ground and stones...

This pitch has provided one of the best tests i've seen for a long time and as it detoriates which its showing that it does.. Then the game gets more tense... Real skill is shown to see if they hold there nerve, will the batsmen get himself out to a stupid shot or will the bowler get frustrated? All part of cricket