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Why not? It's no different from Rugby Union deciding to allow players to lift each other legally at the line out - that was an illegal practice but many youngsters have grown up with it being fully sanctioned!

The key thing is the positive intent: The game has never really recovered from the covering of the wickets: that move shifted the game so massively away from the bowlers that the entire concept of cricket being an attritional contest between bat and ball simply disappeared.. and the changes since then (back foot rule, bringing boundaries in, bouncer law, etc) have just made matters worse.

I would prefer to see the manufacturers produce balls that swung conventionally... but if reverse through working the ball is the only option then sobeit.

Thank goodness for that!! Who wants to see that anyway..

I believe that the game should have a good contest between bat and ball, but the Cricket I have watched over the last 4-5 years has been awesome. The Ashes series was one of the best ever.

Bowlers have had to think and use lots of skill to get wickets, much better than just turning up and finding the pitch does it all for them.

Even with all the new rules that are supposed to inhibit the bowlers- how many drawn games do we see these days?

For me the balance is right, and I would not want the bowlers being allowed to deliberately ruff up the ball on the turf to "correct" that balance.

Not as many draws as used to be. lits of games are over in 3 to 4 days.

If players are not allowed to rough up the ball, then certain players like a imfamous Lancashire player will manage somehow.
To be honest though Wollmer should get real, a purple patch at the moment, but soon they would be one of the first teams to suffer.

there are lots better bowlers than batsmen in the world at the moment, and Englands seam attack would with Hoggard and Anderson would be the main ones to benefit.

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Ern

Pollock is extremely skillful and is frequently negated by flat tracks... and the same has too often been true for Gillespie, Vaas, Langveldt, Collymore, Hoggard, Zoysa and many, many other very, very good bowlers.

Martin Bicknell should have had a glittering Test career but never got a shout because pitches favoured batsmen too much: unresponsive pitches drive selectors AWAY from skillful bowlers and towards extreme pace and bounce.

Much the same is true for spinners: Kumble rarely finds the bounce and turn he needs to really shine.... leaving lesser mortals a hopeless task. Off-spin has found so little help on world-wide wickets that specialists who CAN do something... like Harbhajan and Udal... are all but disappearing.

In the recent Pura cup final one side posted somehting like 900 in one innings: that's not from cricket as a meaningful contest between bat and ball!

I'm not sure that bowler selection would change if the wickets reverted to uncovered. I think Harmison and Flintoff would be even more dangerous on uncovered pitches with the uneven bounce and plenty of seam. So, Martin Bicknell might still not get selected. Woolmer did say that the contest between bat and ball is an issue the ICC has to manage so it doesn't favour either batsman or bowler. I think 400+ runs is way too much for 50 overs. That's more like 20/20 style hitting and the bowlers aren't going to enjoy getting plastered all over the park at grounds like The Wanderers. Even a one-day pitch has to have something in it for the bowlers. However, I don't think ball-tampering is the way to go. Perhaps the ICC will allow manufacturers to make new balls that reverse swing from the off? I hope not. That means bowlers don't need to develop that skill if the ball does it naturally. There has to be other solutions to keeping the contest balanced.

This is Simon Mann's opinion of what makes a good one-day pitch:
Does anyone agree with that?

i think that the icc have to do something about this otherwise soon, all a team would need is 11 batsman and 5 part time bowlers. if a bowler is going to get hit around the park because there is no assistance from the pitch and it feels like you are playing on a concrete strip, why select full time bowlers as the only way to get someone out would be if the batsman would make a mistake.i think that in a 50 over game the max runs that should be made is around 320. and that can only happen if the pitch has some assiatnce tot he bowlers. 400+ in a 50 over game i believe is ridiculous. batsman should be made to work for their runs, and likewise for the bowlers to be made to work for their wickets. in a test match you cant win with runs, only with wickets.

In Test matches where there is pretty limited help for the bolwers, little bit of seam and swing early, little bit of spin. We have been seeing scores of 350 in recent matches. This is all well and good, the bowlers are dominating games a bit at the moment IMO but as soon as we see 350 in half the amount of time in an ODI then surely it's the pitch not giving the bowlers the chance to do something.

Creating balls to reverse swing straight off would be an hurrendous idea, Simon Jones may as well have just sat on his bum rather than spend time in the nets mastering the art.

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Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

three words to say to this article... "bobs lost it"

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