South African groundsmen are preparing pitches to last the full five days but the lack of variety might kill off interest in Test cricket Peter Robinson When a batsman who has just scored 180 in a Test match wonders publicly whether the type of pitch he’s just scored his runs on really suits his side, then you have to ask exactly what is going on.
By almost every usual reckoning, Gary Kirsten should have wanted to dig up the Kingsmead pitch, stuff it in his suitcase and carry it around with him wherever he goes. Last Christmas he made 275 against England on it; this Christmas he scored 180 against Sri Lanka on it. What more, you wonder, could the man want?
Yet at the end of the Kingsmead Test, Kirsten argued that harder, faster, bouncier wickets were what South Africa really needed. And he’s not the only one in the South African camp to feel that way. Almost everyone you speak to, and this includes captains, coaches, batsmen, bowlers and officials, was dreading the thought of another low, slow strip at Newlands.
Fortunately, they didn’t get it, and as a result the first day of the second Test match was the most entertaining of the summer and that includes the one-day internationals. But the fact that much of this summer’s Test cricket seems to have been played on the same pitch begs the question of why wickets more suited to the opposition than to the home team have been prepared all around the country.
The answer, or at least the most prevalent theory, is simple: the various Test unions don’t want pitches on which Test matches might be won inside the fourth day. They want pitches that will go the full distance, and in this respect a draw might possibly be preferable to a home win.
The economics of Test cricket are behind all this. No fifth days mean losses of revenue through the gate, from television rights and sponsorship deals and whatever else. Unfortunately, though, the type of cricket produced by dull pitches is self-evidently turning people from Test cricket. If it’s going to be tedious, then you might as well skip the expense of going, the hassle of looking for parking and stay at home and watch it on the telly. There, at least, the fridge is close at hand and you don’t have to pay ridiculous prices for filthy food.
The problem in South Africa is that we don’t have the variety of pitches that have made Australia such a slick team on a variety of surfaces. You know that in Australia it will swing and seam in Brisbane, that it will bounce in Perth, that it will turn in Sydney and the Australians have adapted their approach and the selection policies to take all this into account.
In South Africa, by contrast, there’s a horrible homogeneity around at the moment. Bloemfontein plays like Port Elizabeth, which plays like Durban, and so on. And what it all adds up to is a situation where, as was the case at St George’s Park, a pie-thrower like Nathan Astle can get away with 36 overs for 44 runs. It’s awful to watch and the players are finding it equally tedious trying to perform on these types of surfaces.
There’s also self-interest. Take the bounce out of the pitches and you make Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan a possible match-winner. He’ll turn it on anything and where others struggle to get something out of the pitch, his threat increases proportionately.
Shaun Pollock’s argument for faster pitches is uncomplicated. He says that when you have more bounce and carry, you have more slip fielders and therefore you have more gaps in the field and therefore more runs are scored. Even at Kingsmead, though, Pollock couldn’t get what was so obviously good for his side.
It’s a rum old do when the South African captain can’t get his own province to do him and his team a fairly simple favour. Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa