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Have you ever seen a pitch that looked like the one played on in the third One Day Cricket International between India and Australia in Delhi? Even the commentators remarked how amazing it looked, black and torn up around the edges with a perfect strip down the middle.
It appeared that anywhere the players stepped, the pitch disintegrated.
India’s spinners bowled 31 overs in Australia’s innings and even the handy part-timer Raina was spinning it square while their very talented pace attack didn’t take a wicket and didn’t look genuinely threatening throughout.
At the innings break there was talk about opening the bowling with Hauritz – not a common ploy for an Australian ODI team, to say the least – only for Mitchell Johnson to come out and get peppered for twelve runs in his first over.
Johnson, who reached 150 km/h, was banging the ball in hard, particularly in his second spell.
One perfect example of the pitch’s behaviour came when Johnson bowled what would have been a head high bouncer on any other pitch. Yuvraj had to readjust but it slowed down enough for him to clip the ball off his hip out to square leg.
Allow me to be stereotypical for just one moment. Indian players are excellent off the front foot, particularly wristy and the best players of spin in the world.
This track was tailor-made to suit the stereotypical Indian batsman.
It allowed them to immediately get on the front even before the bowler had bowled knowing that even when short of a length, the ball wouldn’t rise a great deal.
Watching the highlights of Yuvraj’s 50, one noted that every boundary was played well out of his crease and that he was always moving forwards, the opposite of Australian batsmen who, since the Don, have generally moved back and across.
How can we expect players to adjust to such a change in conditions? We aren’t talking about a few cracks here and there. For an Australian viewer, the Delhi pitch was that different it could have come from a different planet.
Surely it is time the ICC stepped in and evened out the playing field for all nations.
Why, for example, do we play Tests in Australia with a Kookaburra ball, in England with a Duke and in India with an SG? Why does the ICC not regulate exactly these kinds of issues?
The ICC, as guardians of the game, must step in and look to remove some of these variables. Yes, pitches will and should remain different, but there should be no two pitches as contrasting as Delhi and Perth.
With modern methods and technology, curators can produce pitches to suit. They won’t get it right every time as they still rely on the weather but we should expect more.
Cricket must move with the times.
The FFA in Australia introduced new laws this season, whereby opposing captains can inspect pitches before the match to ensure they are up to standard.
It is exactly this forward thinking that is lacking amongst cricket administrators, whose only worry it is to fit more cricket into an already bulging schedule to keep the cash registers ringing.
While the Delhi track wasn’t unsafe, it was unfair.
I can recall a delivery to Greg Blewett during a Test in the Caribbean. Blewett was already under pressure to retain his place after some ordinary performances; only to receive a half-tracker that struck him on the pad, plumb in front.
Fortunately it didn’t end Blewett’s career, but surely in the current climate it’s only a matter of time before these circumstances culminate in a player being dropped and losing his career?
There must be more stringent guidelines for what players and fans can expect from a game of international cricket. It was as embarrassing to watch Mitchell Johnson try to come to grips with the Duke ball in the Ashes series as it was to see Australia struggle today on a spinners paradise.
It’s not a true measure of the players when the conditions have pre-determined the result.
While credit must be given to India for another outstanding performance, I can’t help but feel there should be an asterisk next to this scorecard.
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