Uber-flat English pitches would mar World Cup

Effectively anything less than winning the world cup will be considered a failure. True. The cricket section of The Guardian is rife with trophy-less English supporters already cleaning the dust out of the trophy cabinet in expectation. To many of them, a WC victory is a foregone conclusion. You'll even catch the claim that this English side is the best ODI in history.

Does Australia or any team have 5 Lynns? My point is no team has so many batters who bat with the same philosophy, who have similar skill sets and who are peaking together. Therein lies the potential weakness too - for all the talk of Root being the glue etc - he also plays many high-risk shots, getting swayed by those around him. With or without 2 new balls, even the best players could never match this tempo on batting beauties because each of them was playing in lineups which couldn't afford such extravaganza. So expecting a couple of such players to change the dynamics of a team is flawed - their propensity for failure will heap pressure on them and unless the whole team is playing in unison, they will be discarded, the way it happened to Lynn, Short. For all the success of Maxwell, see how much pressure is put on him by even his own coach and captain, let alone the fans.

Low scoring games are boring. I love 400+ scores being set and chased down. I want flat pitches to neutralise the overseas bowling attacks and see the England batsmen go wild.

That is a good point. I did feel that at the last world cup, while conditions were generally pretty batting friendly (outside of Eden Park), it really showed up the quality of the bowlers. The really great bowlers did really well, the good bowlers got smashed. Basically, the better the batting conditions, the smaller the margin for error, and the more the bowler needs their skills to be accurate. It's not good enough to be able to bowl a yorker, it's got to be an accurate, fast, swinging yorker. It's not good enough having 4 different slower balls, you still need to land them in exactly the right spots and know how to use them and not overbowl them etc...

I have no problem with guys like Short and Lynn. They could potentially become really good ODI players (for Lynn a lot of that has to do with whether his body can hold together enough though. I have a feeling he's never going to be healthy enough). But few players will just be dropped into the team and instantly be a world beater. If they had been playing solidly in the team for the last couple of years they might have grown into that sort of player. But parachuting them into the side, last minute, based on just doing well in the BBL was never going to work.

True, home expectation didn't hurt Australia or NZ. But it's not necessarily the same thing. The Australian team were pretty used to winning world cups, and one feels that New Zealand seem to manage to play without a lot of pressure. England have a history of talking like they don't care, because they are used to not doing well, but when they actually have a good team, suddenly pressure and expectation is heaped on. Effectively anything less than winning the world cup will be considered a failure. They went into the Champions Trophy as favourites and got knocked out there. I think there are still definite question marks about whether they can handle the pressure of going into a home world cup as favourites. At the same time, I'm not saying they aren't a decent chance win, they are one of the favourites for good reason. I think it will be an interesting world cup. England could win, so could a number of other teams. Whoever gets into the knockout phase is a chance.

The suggestion from Ronan is the ICC controlled pitches for the Champions trophy were less batsmen friendly than other ODI pitches in England around that time tended to be. So that might be an indication that while they might want pitches where there can be some fireworks (I can't imagine they want to see too many sub-200 scores!) they might not necessarily want the pitches to make it completely impossible for bowlers. Want just enough to give the best quality bowlers something to work with at least.

All that energy wasted to post this inane comment

Yawn.

This assumes the ICC doesnt want them to be batsmen friendly which seems unlikely.

Good call Ronan. Though I do wonder whether really flat pitches advantages the teams with good batsmen significantly more than those with good bowlers? I can see that it might make it easier to take risks against the good spinners if the wicket doesn’t turn, but surely facing a Rabada, Bumrah or a Cummins is still going to be a lot tougher than whacking Junaid Khan, David Willey or Coulter-Nile around the park.

GG - comparing to players of the 2000s misses a crucial point- since 2011 scoring rates have gone up 10-20% following the introduction of the use of two new balls in 2011. Having said that, it’s hard to disagree that Bairstow, Buttler and Roy are at the top of the tree in terms of combining high scores with quick scoring.

Yep I'm quite aware that Australia has been found out in test cricket by sideways movement. But sideways movement is sideways movement be it test or ODI. Australia's top 4 still contain 3 who would be in the top 4 in the test team so they still an examination which they haven't fared well against in recent times. And I take your point about England having one day specialists. As for home expectation well it didn't hurt Australia or NZ last edition. It's shaping up to be a great tournament especially with Australia back in the game

Chris, not all people say so. Few do explicitly. Few put it like Aus should have picked Short, Lynn or India are missing Pant and that other teams are playing cricket from an older generation - essentially not appreciating that such talent in a long batting line up is rare. Coming to your point that these methods work only on consistent pitches - it is true but misses half of the story. Even on such pitches - which one finds quite often in Aus, Ind, UAE, NZ, Even in SA - teams didn't use to go so hard - because they don't have such long batting line ups and don't have the skills. And ofc I agree that better bowling attacks are there and even on flatbeds they would pose to them their biggest challenge.

I agree with everything you’ve said there Chris. Where I am worried is that Australia were competitive in those games recently with an in-form Peter Handscomb who was easily our best bat in a number of those games. The picked Cup side doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility in the batting order if we are on a road. I would have loved for them to pick Handscomb as a back up and then if the road comes he can replace Carey. The top order wouldn’t have to worry as much about their wickets and swing for the fences if they had him possibly coming in anywhere between 5 and 7.

I would consider Root, Buttler, Bairstow and Stokes genuine batsmen. They are all in the test side and they've shown that they can graft runs in difficult conditions against the white or red ball.

I don't think anyone is belittling them as mindless sloggers. But their biggest skill is certainly being able to take great advantage of conditions that don't require them to take into account any issues with how the ball is going to reach them. If you can pick up the line of the ball early out of the hand and know where it's going to end up because it's going to come through with consistent pace and bounce and no lateral movement, then there are lots of skills that can be put into place. If you can't do that because the ball could swing or seam, or there's anything slightly uneven with pace or bounce, it means lots of these shots can't be played, and more traditional batting needs to be employed. Those sorts of conditions would well and truly bring England back to the field.

Sorry David, but that's a load of rubbish. When you have a team playing a series of games and 250 is a winning score in one match and 350 isn't enough in another, it's not that the batsmen suddenly became so much better, it's that cricket is a game where conditions play a massive role. The pitch is the biggest component, they are rolled out of grass and dirt and aren't even and consistent. The same pitch can be played on two days in a row and it's characteristics change significantly in that 24 hour period. Not having a go at the England batsmen, certainly there are some quality players there, and some powerful hitters. But to suggest that they simply score so much bigger than games played elsewhere because of their batting lineup, especially when the opposition they play are also somehow making much higher scores in those games than they were in previous series played in other conditions, is just a case of delusion. They may quite possibly be the best team at piling on massive scores in totally batting friendly conditions, but that doesn't change the fact that they've had the most batting friendly home conditions, conducive to high scoring, for the last few years.

But the point of Ronan's article is that the ICC actual have some direct control over the preparation of pitches in these big ICC tournaments. So the pitches prepared won't necessarily be about what England would want.

I think you are thinking more about test cricket. The issue with England's batting lineup is it's so packed with pure "hitters" who can put the ball anywhere they like as long as the conditions mean it's always gunbarrel straight with even bounce and pace. Not necessarily so good in conditions that give something for the bowlers. Most of the other top teams have a few more "geniune batsmen" in the side with good first class records who are possibly better positioned to handle it if there's a bit on offer for the bowlers. But it really is quite an intriguing tournament, as just about anything is possible. I still have the feeling that England will crumble under the pressure of home expectation and trying to ride to the title almost purely on the back of their batting. But you never know.