Just over a week after we see a run-fest where almost 900 runs are scored, we see an equally exciting and probably more intense ODI where just over 250 are managed in the whole day. I am referring of course to the very low-scoring SL v Pak match today, where Pak won by 4 wickets while chasing 130.

When was the last time we saw an ODI where the winning team only had four boundaries in its entire innings prior to the last over? Powerplays came and went, slogger after slogger strode to the middle, but no one could treat this ground like a "baseball diamond", and I am glad for it - if we see 400+ scores more regularly in just 50 overs, we might as well not have specialist bowlers, and use part-timers, or better still, bowling machines instead. I yearn for the days where a team scoring 300 could look back with satisfaction on a wonderful job - such huge totals should not be the norm, they should be the rare reward for excellent batting strategy, unusual flair or superlative talent.

I think today's match was a lot more enjoyable than most of the predictable bash-a-thons seen in the pyjama-world these days. This was a tense, closely fought affair, where every run carried a premium and was cherished by the batting team. Yes, the batting was not as good as it could have been, but isn't it refreshing to see the sloggers made to sweat a bit? More than that, it is good for the game when established players have to re-think their strategy and batting approach in the middle of a match - not all succeeded, but international cricket should not be an easy joy-ride for every Afridi, Sehwag and Gilchrist!

If only we have more ODIs where batsmen are properly tested, not merely on technique, but on their temperament, where bowlers can dare to experiment, where captains can set attacking fields, and most of all, everyone has to adapt and learn. Yes, a team chasing 434 in 50 overs was a remarkable achievement and made for excellent viewing, but please, not every other day! Once every ten years would be just about right

__________________
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

It appears the final 3 balls were dispatched as follow:That means Razzaq (known for rather Flintoff-esque long-handled ODI batting) must have started that over having scored 27 runs off 101 deliveries without a single boundary. The contributions of the others suggest everyone except Dishan really struggled...

This raises an interesting point in light of the ICC's proposed "introduction of a formal pitch-monitoring process, which would include potential sanctions ranging from a formal warning to suspension of international status for venues that produce substandard pitches." The ICC's Executive Board meets in Dubai on March 21 and 22 to discuss this proposal amongst a range of other issues on their agenda.

The question is, "what is a sub-standard pitch"? Is the Premadasa sandpit a sub-standard pitch because it produced a low-scoring match or is it a great pitch because it produced a hard-fought battle of absorbing cricket? Some pundits think that pitch-monitoring is ruining cricket in England because the pitch inspectors favour flat, seamless wickets. When a pitch is served up to suit the spinners the club is fined. So, when does an England spinner get to bowl on a turner? He has to wait till the back-half of the season when the pitches are dry enough to allow some turn.

The aim of ODI's was to produce more entertaining cricket and to move cricket into the 21st century (end of 20th). I think that a sub standard is surely one that does not provide entertainment throughout the whole game. So maybe we should look to either make complete flat tracks that get 50 overs of bullying or extremely high, seaming wickets that will test the batsmen. Maximising entertainment value.

__________________
Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

The basic test of a wicket is simple enough:

{i} does it allow top bowlers a chance to dominate at some point in the game

{ii) does it allow good bowlers to "do a job" throughout the match

If it can do both without actually being dangerous then it's good for cricket.

The first test is not whether Glen McGrath, Shane Warne or Shoaib Akhtar can do a job.... it's whether they can bowl spells of such sustained brilliance that they can seperate the men fromthe boys. The second Test is, however, the more meaningful one: can the many interesting and worthy bowlers who typicaly populate Test cricket... like Langveldt, Hoggard, Vaas, Harbhajan, Rana, Collymore, Kasprowicz and Vettori.... get enough from the pitches to consistently apply pressure.

Bottom line: the majority of pitches should encourage pitched up, fast-medium seam / swing bowling and well flighted slow bowling and give encouragement to genuine spinners.... because the alternative is actually a domination by ODI "containment" bowlers (back of a length "heavy ball" merchants who don't really go looking for wickets), wildcard speedsters (whose major hope is that they can "buy" a wicket) and defensive "bottle and end up" spinners.

What interests me is will the ICC pitch inspectors judge the pitch on what they see before the match or after the match is played out? If the match is played and the pitch encourages a good contest on what basis will they impose a fine for a sub-standard pitch? The pitch will either be good for batting or bowling if one dominates the other in which case a result can be achieved through the necessary amount of wickets taken or declarations made by the two captains if not enough wickets drop.

Surely, they won't hand out a penalty should the wicket spin on day 1.

I don't think Razzaq "struggled" at any time through his innings, if by that we mean he was fighting to save his wicket. One could argue that he struggled to 'impose' himself on the bowlers, but that did not seem to be his intention anyway; his aim was to play everything with the straightest bat possible, and not take any risks. According to the Cricinfo match report: When was the last time you heard the ICC caring about a pitch being too batsmen friendly, even in Tests, let alone ODIs! If Sri Lanka are to be reprimanded for producing the Premadasa sand-pit, then surely consistency demands that South Africa are too, for the Wanderers concrete-strip?One should hope not, but I think they probably will! The last time we had a real turner for a Test match was the India v Aus Test at Bombay a couple of years ago, where the game was over in literally two days. Instead of accepting defeat gracefully and admitting his team's batting needed some work, Ponting blamed the defeat solely on what he thought was a 'sub-standard' pitch - as if it is the home board's responsibility to manufacture a pitch which suits the strengths of the tourists!

__________________
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Gloucestershire went down to a third successive Championship defeat when Kent completed a seven-wicket success shortly after lunch at Maidstone.

But the home side took only ten points from the game after it had been announced earlier that they had been docked eight points for a sub-standard pitch.

A panel of pitch inspectors, consisting of Tony Pigott, David Hughes and Harry Brind, made their decision after 27 wickets had fallen in 136 overs on the first two days.

A statement from the England & Wales Cricket Board said: "After interviewing the umpires, captains and coaches of both teams and the groundsman, the panel decided that the pitch had demonstrated excessive seam movement and should therefore be rated 'poor'." Kent chief executive Paul Millman said the club is considering an appeal against the decision.

http://www.gloscricket.co.uk/cricket...asp?newsID=163

-----------------------------------------------


Hamilton, (New Zealand), Jan. 26: New Zealand beat World XI by four wickets here on Wednesday in a one-day match which turned to farce on a sub-standard pitch with just 164 runs scored as 16 wickets fell.

New Zealand lost six wickets in their struggle to overhaul a paltry World XI total of 81. The victory clinched a 2-1 margin for the home side in the three-match series to raise funds for victims of the Asian tsunamis.

World XI captain and Australian spin sensation Shane Warne described the pitch as "terrible" and called for a one-day international between New Zealand and Australia scheduled for March 2 to be moved to another venue. "I think the authorities will probably move the game knowing the way the pitch played today. I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets moved, I think it was sub-standard," Warne said. "No one had any confidence of trying to get forward, it was just pot luck whether you played and missed, you had to just try and slog."

http://cricket.123india.com/news/620050128-c.html

------------------------------------

Kenya 117 (Ewing 4-16, Utseya 4-16) beat Zimbabwe A 87 (Ongondo 4-33, Aga 4-14) by 30 runs
Scorecard

Zimbabwe cricket suffered another major blow at the Harare Academy ground on Saturday when Kenya beat Zimbabwe A by 30 runs in a low-scoring match played on a substandard pitch.

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/co...ml?CMP=OTC-RSS
------------------------------------------

The pitch was spiteful. The two captains, Sourav Ganguly and Robin Smith, met at lunch time on the second day and came to an understanding that in the remaining part of the match (five sessions of two hours each) only the slow bowlers would be in operation. This was done in order to prevent injuries because India had a Test match to play against England and Hampshire had a Norwich Union League one-day match against Lancashire.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/tss/tss2531/25310240.htm

------------------------------------------

It is the first time in Test cricket's 121-year history that a match has been abandoned because of the state of the pitch.

Both the former West Indies fast bowling legend Michael Holding and the former England all-rounder Ian Botham described the condition of the pitch as "a disgrace".

"This pitch is not fit for Test cricket or even club cricket for that matter. It is completely substandard. Our fast bowlers don't want to seriously injure anyone," said Holding. "It is an embarrassment."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/cricket/51803.stm

---------------------------------------------
VVS Laxman 29. Rahul Dravid 1. Sachin Tendulkar 4. Parthiv Patel 25. Dinesh Karthik 10...

The scores above would suggest an unusually severe drubbing at the hands of a rampant Australia -- but they are, in fact, taken from the ongoing Duleep Trophy game between South Zone and West Zone, at the Visaka International Cricket Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad.

South, batting first, managed 187. A West Zone led by none other than Tendulkar is, in response, at the time of writing this struggling on 197 for eight in just 65 overs.

Great bowling? Sub-par batting? Or just a sub-standard pitch? The question is intriguing, especially when you consider that in this domestic season, low scoring games have become increasingly common.

http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2005/feb/23pitch.htm
------------------------------------------------

On the rain-hit first day when just 11 overs were bowled, 22 runs were scored for the loss of two wickets. The second day produced 290 runs for 18 wickets and the third 293 runs for 20 wickets.

Australia, set a modest fourth innings target of 107, were shot out for 93 to give India a face-saving win.

Ponting said after the match he would be reporting the pitch to the International Cricket Council.

"It was nowhere near a Test wicket," Ponting said. "It was disappointing for everyone, the players and the fans, that the match ended so fast.

"There was very little batsmen could do on a track like that."

BCA vice-president Dilip Vengsarkar, himself a former Test captain, said the pitch "was unsuitable for Test cricket".

"It was a bad advertisement for Test cricket," Vengsarkar said. "We will ensure this does not happen again because the cricket-loving people of Bombay (Mumbai) deserve full five days of action."

http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200411/s1239992.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/cricket/51803.stm

-------------------------------------------------

So what makes a good cricket pitch? Firstly, it should be even; not necessarily level - the square at Lord's famously slopes to one side - but the surface should be free from bumps and holes that would make the ball behave erratically. Then it should be firm; not rock-hard, but sufficiently resilient for the ball not to leave pitch-marks in the surface. It should be thinly but evenly grassed: too much live grass gives too much help to seam bowlers, but a bare pitch, without grass roots to bind the soil, will soon crumble to dust. Finally, it should be dry, because a damp pitch, like a green one, is too seamer-friendly. Ideally, the captain winning the toss should want to bat first, but the toss should not be crucial to the outcome of the match.

http://www.nakedwhiz.com/crickpit.htm
------------------------------------------------------------
It is a fundamental principle that you cannot play good cricket on poor wickets.

2. WHAT DO WE SEE AS BEING A GOOD PITCH?

We may all have different ideas on how an ideal pitch should behave (depending perhaps on the bowling strengths of our side at any time) and the ideal pitch will vary according to the duration of the intended game. We need to define what we want before we can set down our procedures. For the purposes of this seminar, we define an ideal pitch as follows:

For a four or five day game

Day 1:
The pitch should be quite moist, with some green grass on the surface (not all will agree with this, as in the Australian examples which will be discussed later). A green surface will allow the ball to seam around a bit (later we will explain why greenness promotes this movement). The pitch should have consistent pace and bounce.

Days 2 & 3:
The pitch will have dried out and should become more bouncy and it should quicken up (provided it does not crack badly by becoming too dry too quickly). It will have lost its greenness and so should not seam around much. The ball should come nicely onto the bat and the pitch should now be ideal for batting.

Day 4:
The surface should start to powder and the cracks will start to open up. This will slow the pitch down. It will become less bouncy, the bounce will become more inconsistent and it will start to take spin.

Day 5:
The above pattern will be accentuated as the pitch wears further.

http://www.cricinfo.com/db/ABOUT_CRI...F_PITCHES.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although most of these examples suggest that sub-standard pitches result in low-scoring affairs due to the extra assistance to the bowlers I believe that pitches that produce run-fests are equally sub-standard because those matches often produce boring draws.

I think the best cricket has a match finishing with a result in 4 days. That equates to about 10 wickets per day. One wicket per 9 overs keeps both the bowler and spectator interested. This is achievable if the ball comes onto the bat to encourage the batsmen to play their shots.

One of the criticisms by some fans is they prefer to see good bowling get a batsman out rather than the batsman get himself out to a poor stroke. However, is bowling "good" if the pitch assisted the ball to dart in a long way to remove off stump? How good a piece of bowling was Shane Warne's removal of Strauss at Edgbaston last year when the rough assisted the ball to grip sufficiently to turn square?

I think a good wicket should encourage the batsmen to play strokes because that risk-taking will help the bowlers take wickets when the batsman misjudge the line, length, pace or flight of the ball. Quite often, though, due to the current situation in a Test series, a good contest can fizzle out to a tame draw when a captain declares to give the side batting last an impossible task to win the match. That should only be done if you're confident of bowling the side out in the time available because a huge target is a disincentive to play shots. There is nothing more boring than a team blocking for the entire innings to save a match.

Had Australia adopted that approach at Edgbaston they would have saved that game and retained the Ashes. Thankfully, they turned the match into a memorable one by continuing to play their shots even as wickets tumbled.

I totally agree with you Maranello... This last ODI was perhaps one of the best i have ever seen yes even including the S.A Aus run fest... its great to see batsmen hitting everything out of the park but for me a pitch where balls dart around with inconsistent bounce is the real test... and muruli didnt get 1 wicket!!!! now thats a match!!

__________________