Pitch Preparation in Pakistan

[Rachael]

Well.. with all the discussion taking place in this foum focussing on prospects for batsmen and bowlers.. I thought i'd start a thread on one critical element that's also going to be crucial to the make up of any future side: the home pitches.

We've seen lately (in the Pak-Ind Test series) that pitches in Pakistan CAN suit swing bowlers. We've also seen time and again that subcontinental pitches can be low and slow, horribly flat, and hostile to anything but extreme pace (preferably with reverse swing) or extreme turn (preferably coming through quickly, as with Murali, not slowly, as with Warne).

Froma batting perspective I'm sure the groundsmen are as capable of producing challenging wickets on which batsmen have to graft as they are of producing pitches that wil see 300+ every innings in a ODI: anything is possible.

What would be the most sensible guidlines for pitch preparation in the short term, the medium term and the long term? Should there be pitches to encourage Umar Gul and Shabbir Ahmed? Or pitches on which such bowlers are a liability, best kept out by the likes of Shoaib, Sami and Kaneria? Should the pitches favour strokeplayers with poor technique who would be found out by good bowlers under less favourable conditions.. or should they provide the sternest Test such that only the very classiest batsmen can thrive.

Such questions strike me as being absolutely crucial to any long term planning for Bob Woolmer: any sugegstions?

[Zainub]

Very good question Racheal.

I think we have been a little on the gulity side as far as pitch preparation is concerned, in the past we've made more than our share of St John's Antigua type feather beds - but more recently I've seen pitches, especially the ones in Peshawar to offer quite a bit to the bowlers. On a general consensus, Rachael, irrespective of what ever a groundsman can do, or cannot do, our pitches will invariably be on the slower side (compared to the rest of the world), having lower bounce and relatively batsman friendly - bounce is something we can not control, and will depend upon the effort different bowler apply and they pace they are bowling at - it is as a matter of fact something that is more or less dependent on the nature of the soil here.

What we can control though is how flat or green we want our wickets to be, we did that in the Indian series were the Pindi and Lahore test matches were won by sides bowling first and skidding out the team batting first for low scores and then trying to spend the rest of the time pushing the match beyond the other team's reach. That wasn't for me, exactly the ideal situation since it puts a little too much emphasis on the toss for my likiing. The new ball tended to do quite a bit, but since there was more grass on the surface I didn't see too much reverse swing. Moisure content was also a little higher than usual, so wicket turned later than it usually does. In the Multan test match in that seires was on the other hand played on wicket that was flat (India scored over 600, Pakistan replied with over 400 in their first innings but still lost by an innnings) hard, with no grass and virtually no assistance for seamers with the new ball all through out the test match. However that test match did see Anil Kumble take wickets in a bunch, and Pakistan were criticised for not picking two spinners because the wicket did crack up a bit towards the end.

Ideally I think I would want our youngsters to play on the kinds of pitches in Faislabad, Peshawar and at times Karachi as well (talking at all time with respect to 3, 4 and 5 day matches). The wickets we prepared in the India series (Andy Atkinson was cheif curator at that time) were for the greater part either too flat, or too flat again. (even in those two test matches were 1st innings scores of both teams were low there was assistance for seamers namely Umar Gul and Balaji only on the first day , once the moisture dried out it became as dead as dodo again).

In contrast the wicket in Peshawar where (only a one-day game was played there during the India series) perhaps because of the city's geographical location the new ball will always in each and every innings across al the five days offer the bowler a genuine chance of a wicket, the batsmen will have to work hard for their runs, but there is always good value for shots, and usually it does take some turn as well from the 3rd day onwards. We played one test match in Faislabad against South Africa, that was good track too, because it always offered both the batting side and bowling side an incentive to put in extra effort - that series in general was played on tracks that were very fair on both sides, and if you see who were the successful players in that series you will get to know how balanced everything was, for South Africa Gary Kirsten scored runs, but so did Gibbs, for Pakistan Taufeeq Umar scored the runs but so did Imran Farhat, bowling wise Paul Adams got a few wickets but so did Pollock, and for us, Shoaib and Kaneria did most of the damage. These are some contrasting type of players. I thought those were the kind of pitches which did not only test our team fully without decreasing or over increasing significantly the home advantage. Invariably after that series we went on to win that away series in NZ as well.

There is no point in my opinion even in the short of preparing pitches favoring one type of bowlers or batsmen only at a time - that can sometimes mislead the fans and even selectors into thinking these guys will go places in their careers - one in actual fact they have only exploited contitdions overwhelmingly favoring one aspect of cricket. Almost invariably we see the examples of careers like those of Salim Elahi - we don't need any more batsmen who thirve on a "stand and deliver" style of playing across the line with out evering moving your feet. We need batsmen than can thrive in all conditions. So we need pitches that test both bowlers and batsmen and give them both an advantage to exploit at different times of a match.

[Shaka]

Agree pretty much with what Zainub said, in Pakistan the local conditions pretty much dictate the type of pitch. If I could pick one track as the ideal it would be Peshawar. There is bounce and some movement for the fast bowlers, but good batsmen can make runs on it too. I think the Rawalpindi pitch is another similar one. The problem with preparing green tracks is the ball won't reverse then. Plus I don't think bowlers like Shoaib and Sami are all that good at exploiting the conditions, and these tracks can often favour opposition bowlers more than ours. The likes of Sri Lanka's Vaas and Zoysa have bowled better in such conditions in the past.

Still I would prefer anything to the dead pitches we have seen in the past. ideally we'd be able to produce a true track with some decent bounce which would be a fair surface for all concerned and in my view would produce entertaining cricket too.

[Nikhil]

Well, I do not have exact data about pitches in Pakistan, but my obesevation during the India series was:

1. The first pitch in Multan was crap.
2. The other two pitches were overdone with the obsession of keeping grass.

But I think the other two pitches were good. Rawalpindi (the third test, I think) pitch had enough in it for almost 5 sessions. Dravid and Patel had to play well for a long time.

I would prefer a pitch like the one at Hedingley, with a little less movement and a little more assistance for spinner in the end. Initially, the batsmen must grind for runs. It looks ridiculous to see batsmen hitting on-the-up from over no.2 and the pitch should deteriorate enough to help quality spinners, so that it's not harsh on the team batting first.

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Rachael

What would be the most sensible guidlines for pitch preparation in the short term, the medium term and the long term? Should there be pitches to encourage Umar Gul and Shabbir Ahmed? Or pitches on which such bowlers are a liability, best kept out by the likes of Shoaib, Sami and Kaneria? Should the pitches favour strokeplayers with poor technique who would be found out by good bowlers under less favourable conditions.. or should they provide the sternest Test such that only the very classiest batsmen can thrive.

Such questions strike me as being absolutely crucial to any long term planning for Bob Woolmer: any sugegstions?

In order to make Pakistan a premier Test side internationally, the batsmen need to be technically a lot more sound then they are now. Pitches, of course are only a part of the story in this, but an important part nonetheless. Hence, I firmly believe that the way forward is pitches provide the sternest Test such that only the very classiest batsmen can thrive.

However, this a long term strategy, which needs to be implemented over a period of time for domestic cricket, so the younger batting talent can hone their skills on it, before it is rolled out for all Tests. I am not sure if all grounds can have such pitches (soil conditions, moisture, temperatures, etc), but in my lifetime I have seen, at one occasion or another, a green-ish pitch on most of Pakistan's international venues at one time or another.

I am less certain about the short term strategy - ideal scenario would be a bunch of the young batsmen (Yasir, Imran, Butt) and the young swing & seam bowlers (Gul, Shabbir, Naveed) getting a chance to play first-class or league cricket abroad in swing friendly conditions. The home pitches for, eg, our next home series should be based on what we think our greatest strength is vis-a-vis the particular opposition for that series. And this could vary from series to series over the short term time horizon.

In the n