An Interesting Thought on the Lord's Pitch

[Sureshot]

alot of wickets, i could think of 2 from yesterday. We have had almost no rain in the last 7 months in London or on the coast here. about 1/20th of we what we should have had. Hosepipe ban aswell has affected the pitch. Been intersting though and that is all that matters imo.

 

[sohum]

Uneven bounce--tennis ball like? It sometimes did not get up to your knees but at other times it was around your throat. Some of the Aussie wickets definitely fell for that reason.

 

[m_vaughan]

Uneven bounce--tennis ball like? It sometimes did not get up to your knees but at other times it was around your throat. Some of the Aussie wickets definitely fell for that reason.

Just one actually - Damien Martyn.
Like I said before, its just one particular patch in the pitch which is a bit soft and the ball keeps low on hitting that.

 

[FreddieFan]

I think the pitch is taking quite a lot of unfair stick here. After all, it's produced a gripping test match hasnt it? The match is perfectly poised, wonderfully in the balance, and that is a tremendous advert for the game.

Headingly is said to be a bowlers wicket, and often produces short tests, but no-one complains because the short tests are so exciting. I'd rather have a close finish on the second day than having two 500+ innings and the teams batting it out.

 

[Sureshot]

Uneven bounce--tennis ball like? It sometimes did not get up to your knees but at other times it was around your throat. Some of the Aussie wickets definitely fell for that reason.

The pitch had hardly been watered for ages though. Our water reservoirs are about 10% full.

 

[Stephen Bailey]

Yeah... only 10 wickets. :S
I heard the commentators say that the groundsmen couldn't hope for better pre-match conditions to prepare the pitch. And also that the pitch played like a 7th day pitch. That's what the commentators said.

The pitch was definitely responsible for a lot of wickets yesterday. Although batsmen irresponsiblity was a factor... maybe it was just one of those weird days in the world.

I wouldn't say the pitch was responsible for all that many in the match. The ones I can think of are Vaughan (certainly could've played it better though), Flintoff and Damien Martyn in the Aussie second innings.

The movement down the hill happens every now and then at Lord's (its an 8 foot whatever it is slope from one side to the other!), McGrath just exploited it quite supurbly yesterday. Today, the pitch was playing alot better, just look at what the score was (240 odd for 3). The groundsman has also said the pitch was ready too early (the day before the start), so you could almost call it a 4th day pitch tomorrow.

Michael Clarke took 6/9 on 'that' pitch during the Aus v India series, I think that says alot.

 

[Ashish_Nehra]

kaif dravid and otherwise tailenders, only 2 meaningful

aus could have chased 107(or 108) but they failed, had they won everything was fine.

what about perth where pak finish for 62

 

[irottev]

The pitch isn't great to say the least. Its not fully to blame though, its just been poor batting from both teams and good bowling. I think that there is too much uneven bounce which isn't dangerous but it has lead to a lot of wickets. Also apparantly its two paced but part of a batsmans job is to adapt to the conditions. Every pitch can't be perfect.

I have seen much bigger scores on much worse pitches from apparantly not as good cricket teams.

 

[Ryand]

Well, the natwest final played at lords gave us 196 runs for each side.And that was an ODI.So it should be more bowler friendly for the tests i guess

 

[sohum]

Ok... there are two points of view here. The pitch has definitely settled down now, behaved in sort of a reverse fashion.

Point #1: Match is interesting
Definitely, it is. No one's arguing that. Similarly, the match in Mumbai was also interesting--gripping. When you get low-scoring matches they are bound to be interesting especially if both teams are in the game. While a few wickets brought India in to the match, if the Australians had just batted and formed one partnership, it would have seen them through. And Clarke isn't that bad of a bowler. He even had a 4-wicket haul in an ODI at Mumbai. He just got into a rhythm and the Indians lost the plot.

Point #2: Pitch and responsiblity of wickets
The pitch was directly responsible for 3 wickets, as mentioned above. But definitely the batsman were affected by the uneven bounce so that they changed their game to some detail. They are expected to do this, no doubt, but this just seemed a little awkward because of great bowling from McGrath. As for the preparation of the pitch, wouldn't the first test at The Ashes have enough priority to ensure everything was perfect? And about the water reservoirs, let's just hope that the cricket isn't affected by rain!!

Laters...

 

[Sureshot]

responsible for 3 wickets of 35!!!! Not alot is it. Under 10%.

 

[sohum]

Do you actually read what I write or just superficially scan it for details?

 

[Sureshot]

Nope i read it all. I just don't think it's as bad a pitch as people say. We need this rain not just for the match but our reservoirs the ground is so hard it will hardly affect the pitch.

 

[sohum]

Oh dear, the rain is giving England some respite!