The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

It's time to end the drought and hunger of flat wickets

Stuart Broad takes out his frustration on another flat pitch.
Expert
29th December, 2017
20

Hundreds of bowlers are left starving every day by the preventable poverty of lifeless pitches.

Forced to work under oppressive conditions with meagre movement and desperate field settings, some are known to be labouring for no more than three knee-high bouncers a day.

Worst affected are seamers, with mortality rates soaring.

Many have succumbed as infirm or disinterested, while others flee to become change-up specialists or moderate spinners. In the most regrettable cases, some will alter the condition of the ball in an attempt to simply make ends meet.

Such is the plight of the quicks, the CSIRO predicts that if the spread of featherbeds is not controlled, there could be a repeat to exceed the West Indies’ basketball holocaust of the 1990s.

While the growth of the flatbed was once manageable, they have multiplied in recent times thanks to greedy authorities lured by advertising more Toyotas and chicken.

This has been facilitated by the nefarious trade of drop-in wickets, which are cheaply accessed, mass produced, and coated with more preservatives than a Big Mac.

The sporting pitch has gradually become extinct as these two forces collaborated, with the most recent surface to favour bowling sighted in the deep south of New Zealand in 2009. It was immediately transformed to a curling rink.

Advertisement

While the torturous deck is not always apparent to the untrained eye – and will more often than not be unjustly described as a ‘good wicket’ – it is usually identifiable by the conduct of the curator.

Instead of mowing the surface, they treat it with a high pressure hose, or re-lacquer instead of rolling. Be aware.

A groundsman on a heavy roller rolls the pitch ahead of the Test match

(AFP Phto/William West)

Thankfully, crap strips have finally been exposed on the big stage in this year’s Boxing Day Test, where the pitch smashed records for widespread famine by managing to repel seam, spin and batting.

With bereft captains at the MCG exhausting funky fields by the end of day two, triggering a 145 per cent increase in Mexican Waves, the time has come for us to face up to this humanitarian crisis.

When pitches become so full of Tryptophan that we are thankful when blokes like Alastair Cook, Shaun Marsh and Ian Chappell ‘get going’- it is time for serious action.

Because we, the people, will never stop the power of money, there is little we can do than be the change in the world we want to see.

Advertisement

So please, give generously by donating a garden hose to your local groundsman, or by saving us all by batting first if you’re clearly less adept than the opposition. You can even put down that drumstick.

The onset of flat, lifeless decks has gone on too long. Let’s stop the next underprivileged bowler becoming another statistic.

Because a flat wicket is not a ‘good’ wicket.

close