Dangerous pitch mars one-dayer in Sydney

You can't say that something isn't dangerous because no-one has been hurt. (Although I'm all in favour of that rationale when it comes to driving.) I saw most of the end of the NSW v Vic and thought it was a dud call. I think something that may have influenced the umps was that Vic not out batter Blake Thomson was lousy against the short ball. Like P Hughes was.

Hey NSW had to play on it too. If it was suss it should have just been called a N/R! NSW had two of the fastest bowlers in the country bowling on that pitch, and as far as I can see there wasn't a single injury to a batsman. Can't be too dangerous!

Yes, I mentioned that one above. The pitch that New Zealand said was too dangerous for them to bat on despite the CA XI having just scored 1/600 on that exact pitch. It looked pretty patchy, but clearly it wasn't causing too many problems for Finch and Carters! That's part of my problem here. If really poor pitches have been rolled out that have been dangerous to play on they need to do something. But a pitch where the first team just scored 1/600 hardly seems like a dangerous pitch, and a pitch where they've got 26 overs into the second innings and it's not changed in all that time, might be a tricky pitch to bat on, but why suddenly declare it dangerous and call off the match the moment enough of the match has been played for it to be declared a Victorian victory rather than a N/R? That shield match that was called off I remember a lot of complaints saying that there was nothing wrong with it and it was totally fine to play the match on. But that was ignored and they just awarded the points to Vic. A bit of uneven bounce doesn't suddenly make a pitch dangerous. It seems like we are having games called off because of poor pitches where those pitches are probably still better than many that would have been used in the past with no problems.

Doug the rug can still pin them down.

Well then lets just get to the pointy end of it and ban short balls, that will eliminate all the risk to head injuries, ban anyone who breaks that rule and stop games immediately if there is any inconsistent bounce. That is obviously an extreme reaction but if we are all going to be worried if a Phil Hughes type incident could happen again then that is what the game will end up coming too to avoid any chance of it.

Seeing that Tas are now (8pm AEDST) 3/101 off 22.4 , it seems unlikely. Andrew Jones frothing and fulminating about officials is a bit gob-smacking seeing that it was the NSW Cricket Associations job to make sure that all their pitches were fit for purpose

"one ball" isn't right. Any pitch which allows a pudgy 36yo Doug Bollinger to ping batters is more than a bit suss.

"That’s 2 times in 3 years by the NSW Cricket Association." And let's not forget the NSW v NZ game at Blacktown that was abandoned.

It's a post Phil Hughes world now though. They just can't take the risk of a batsman getting knocked on the back of the neck if they could avoid it.

I remember that. Finch and Carters getting double centuries, Finch nearly a triple. "Dangerous" alright. I don't quite understand the criteria for a "dangerous" pitch. It can't just be that blokes are getting bounced; Burns was out hit wicket from a Starc bouncer just a few games ago and there was no problem with that pitch. The only issue that really could have been playing into things was the lighting, and if that's the case they should have just stayed with that story, instead of saying the pitch was dangerous.

If they actually are dangerous pitches then yes, but I think a lot of the time that's overkill in calling it that. This was a tough pitch to bat on, but both sides batted on it, it had 70 overs bowled and no batsmen were injured. A couple of years ago a NZ warm-up at Blacktown was called off because they claimed the pitch was dangerous to bat on. That was right after the CA XI side declared one wicket down for over 600. So if anything it was too easy to bat on. There's been some weird calls regarding "dangerous" pitches.

Yes NSW need a review I think because this has become a continuing problem for them over a few years now.

Yes, the one or two that were suddenly so concerning. Watching live I didn't get that feeling at all.

The replays on The Roar snippets show them.

I didn't see any fliers when Cummins and Starc were bowling, I don't remember the commentators commenting on crazy bouncing deliveries. They had no idea that was the reason to end the match. It should be obvious to all if the pitch is unfit for a game.

Ha, yeah super fun.

My point is the carelessness of producing such a pitch. For top level cricket in N SW to produce that twice in 3 years, Andrew Jones should concerned. His job is administration of cricket. He was calling for the sack of those umpires and the referee. The greatest incompetence was the playing condition in his charge. Do we call for his sacking? His response is staggering. It was all under his watch.

To get a double bonus point you need to basically double the oppositions score. So if they bat first, you need to score the runs inside 25 overs, and if you bat first then you need to bowl them out for less than half your score. Double bonus points don't happen too often. They are basically there so that if the team batting first completely crumbles for a really, really horrible total, despite good batting conditions, the target of trying to get the runs in 25 overs can potentially still provide some big hitting and entertainment. But they come about pretty rarely.

North Sydney Oval is the same ground where most of the other matches have produced 300+ innings. You can hardly blame it on them playing on suburban grounds. The fact is that for a competition like that where you get hardly any crowd, playing on those sorts of suburban grounds is much better all around than playing at places with 50,000+ empty seats greeting the players and fans. I agree the Vics would have won anyway. But it is interesting that they'd played almost 70 overs of cricket before determining it was an unsafe pitch, when the pitch didn't change in all that time, and the timing of the determination just happened to be one over after enough overs were bowled to constitute a match and therefore give Vic the win instead of a N/R. Not saying the Vic's wouldn't have won anyway, but it's a very interesting timing that just seems rather dodgy.

If they get a double bonus point against Queensland they will knock Victoria out.