But this affects batsmen too – I’m tired of technically poor, mentally weak batsmen (eg. Ramnaresh Sarwan) being allowed to build solid test records on the back of these pitches. Who are today’s great batsman for tough conditions (eg. Steve Waugh)? We wouldn’t even know…the mediocre batsmen are thriving, and the great batsmen denied the opportunity to test themselves. Remember Waugh v Ambrose in ’95 when everyone else crumbled? Remember Lara’s ton in Perth in ’97? That was real cricket, with great batsmen rising to the challenge against great bowling in great bowling conditions.

Merchandising is another problem, batsman have all sorts of equipment that need sponsoring which gets brand names out there. Bowlers on the other hand have no equipment.

So whilst I agree that groundsmen need to start preparing better wickets, I think favouring batsmen is far more engrained in cricketing culture and marketing than we think. A lot of people and stakeholders need to shift their focus to give bowlers a “fair go”.

I think the Australians and South Africans actively sought results on each and every occasion in the recent two series. However it seems to me that other teams were quite different. There is no doubt that Pakistan and Sri Lanka were both happy with draws. Once the West Indies won the first test of their series against England, everything after that was geared towards not losing, as opposed to winning more tests.

Even the Indians were guilty of this in New Zealand, making all too clear that their only priority was not to lose in the third test, hence setting NZ the ridiculous target of 620 in 5 sessions, even though they had rolled NZ for under 200 in the first innings and all the forecasts were that rain would arrive on the last day. It promptly did, just in time to give NZ a draw it did not deserve.

After this test MS Dhoni made clear that he had no regrets, and that only the series victory was important for him. He genuinely did not seem to care that a ridiculously over-conservative declaration had cost his team a win. Obviously cricketing culture is somewhat different in India to this part of the world, but that is my point: while such attitudes exist so widely, one has to expect a lot of the batting draws that Kersi (rightly) complains about.

Incidentally, I note that the ICC’s test ranking system encourages teams to try to win every match, so for once there is no blame to be apportioned to the ICC!

This raises a question: India say they aspire to the no. 1 test ranking, but how are they going to achieve this when they are happy to draw tests that they should win?

To see further evidence of this, one only has to look at the Wisden Test XI for 2008 that was named a few days ago. The only clearcut bowling selection in this team was Dale Steyn, with the other 3 spots being disputed and going to Zaheer Khan, Mitchell Johnson and Harbhajan Singh. These three are all decent bowlers (remember: we are talking about Johnson’s 2008 form here, not what he has shown since), but they are well below the class of the batsmen selected. I mean, Gautam Gambhir is arguably the form batsmen in world test cricket of the last 9 months, and yet he could not even make the Wisden side (in which G Smith and Sehwag were the chosen openers).

And on the topic of Steyn, a friend of mine recently pointed out that a major reason for Australia’s success in the first two South African tests was that Steyn did not bowl well. As the friend pointed out, in McGrath’s whole career he never had a series in which he bowled as poorly as Steyn did in this one. And yet Steyn is the top bowler in the world at the moment.

Which brings me to my point: Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have retired, Jason Gillespie suddenly lost his mojo, and Shane Bond is banned because of playing for the ICL. Top bowlers have always been rarer than top batsmen, and that is four top bowlers from the first half of the 2000s who suddenly are no longer playing. One could possibly also throw in that Steve Harmison has lost his way (although he was never as consistent as these others). Thus there is something of a vacuum at the top of world bowling, and it is showing.

Having said all the above, I agree that pitches are not helping.

However I wonder if this is due to groundsmen per se or whether it is advancing turf technology and knowledge. It seems to me that groundsmen would certainly like their pitches to deteriorate as tests progress, but these days their turf is so well managed that pitches simply do not deteriorate as they used to.