In The Age today Chuck Berry takes a swipe at Australian groundskeepers for serving up under-prepared, pace-friendly, green-top result pitches which have stymied the development of our first class batsmen:
When first class is second class
THE scent of summer is in the air and the smell of freshly mown grass welcomes in a new season of cricket at all levels across the country. The only problem is someone forgot to tell the groundsmen at all first-class grounds, or their lawn mowers have broken down. The state of first-class pitches over the last few years has astounded me. I totally understand why it is happening and support the stance taken in most states to produce result wickets, but it is not conducive to developing our next level of batsmen and certainly not encouraging the emergence of quality spinners in our first-class system.
Chuck has a point. Juicy pitches and Shield games finishing in three days have meant that our spinners have been being deprived of much needed match exposure. Until we find a "threat" spinner, as opposed to a smorgasbord of right- and left-arm blandoids we will struggle against good sides. It is unAustralian to celebrate the arrival of a spinner simply because he can contain. Ponting, as Russ has regularly mentioned, was an awful captain of spinners; he was also spooked by his decision to bowl first at Fvcken Edgbaston in 2005, which forced him to rigidly stick to tradition and bat first when conditions dictated he should have bowled.
That is only part of the story.
Contained within the term "green top" is an inference that the preparation has been either poor or intentionally skewed to the quicks - excluding early season colour courtesy of winter. What Chuck fails to include is something as simple as the weather. The drought
For around ten Flannerys... I mean, years from 1995 to 2005 Australia barely played a home Test in awkward conditions. This meant that there was little movement in the air and the batsmen were able to swing through the line as they embraced Mark Taylor's, Steve Waugh's and Ricky Ponting's attacking philosophy. No doubt these three skippers had taken cues from the selection and coaching departments - this is pre "unit" and "group" remember. Contributing to Australia's dominance over the period was that international attacks were as bad across the board as any group of attacks in the history of the caper. Compare the great quicks of 1980 to 1995 with the mediocre fare on offer over the following ten years. Australia also had the two best bowlers and a head start on professional development.
Overseas in the same period we were skittled when Tubby batted first at Edgbaston in 1997, but there were rock all other occasions where we were done in by genuine pace-friendly conditions.
Compare that with recent years. Leeds 2008 against Pakistan, The Oval 2009 against England, Sydney 2010 against Pakistan, Melbourne 2010 against England, Hobart 2011 against New Zealand all stick out for our inability to stay in against a moving ball. Perhaps if our batsmen had developed an ability to grind runs instead of smack them we might have not been so abject in our many collapses since the ball started moving again.
Chuck accidentally acknowledges as much: "Ed Cowan has enjoyed scoring runs down there but most other batsmen shudder at the sight of what is being served up for shield matches." Cowan is a grinder who can also leave the ball. (A bit too often in Tests.) The batsmen would shudder less if they were confident, or at least capable, against a moving ball.
A decade of good weather, Stakeholder pitches, McGrath and Warne and rubbish international attacks gave Australia a false sense of superiority as they exploited a serendipitous confluence of factors.
It is time to get back to basics.
Well said that man.
Posted by: m0nty | Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 09:02 PM
I'm with you, Tone.
I can remember when we were routinely thumping everyone that it co-incided with a so-called golden era of batting. Everyone seemed to be averaging over 50 in Test cricket in those days, especially in the subcontinent. India seemed to have its pick of batsmen with outstanding records for instance, but were only a middle-ranking side and couldn't win away. It was in stark contrast to the 80s where mid 30s wasn't considered that bad - Mike Gatting, Allan Lamb, Gus Logie, Larry Gomes, Geoff Marsh and Graeme Wood were all senior batsmen in their day and played a lot of matches.
This is why is really is difficult to compare players from different eras, and why I don't like articles like this - they imply that because things are different from twenty years ago that something's clearly going wrong and it's the result of a conspiracy of the ICC/IPL/BCCI/chuckers collective - or in this case the groundsmen for crying out loud.
I can't see how serving up roads is actually going to teach anyone about anything. Surely the sign of a good batsman is to play well in difficult conditions, and the only way you're going to do that is to do it early in your career. Added to which, matches of any format that are decided by sheer weight of runs alone are boring as hell, and aren't good for the game going forward.
Posted by: Carrot | Monday, October 15, 2012 at 03:08 AM
Yes, agree completely with this. "I can't see how serving up roads is actually going to teach anyone about anything."
It teaches hard hands and lazy shot selection for starters. Our chaps don't need any help with that.
Besides, even if the Aussies are on the receiving end, a top-notch, rabbits in the headlights collapse is one of the truly spectacular and enthralling things to witness in cricket.
Posted by: Lou | Monday, October 15, 2012 at 07:17 AM
Quote of the day (source)
That's gonna take some fixing.
Posted by: Russ | Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 11:44 AM
Mitch: "Gazza, you've got your arm too high."
Posted by: Tony Tea | Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 12:09 PM