Pitch not up to scratch?

[Hooper]

England created a dustbowl knowing we'd go in with the four damaging quicks.

Nothing we can do about it, Australia does it (bouncy batting pitches), India does it (slow, turning wickets), so England did it.

Nothing wrong with making pitches to suit because all countries do it - but that pitch was not like any other pitch in England I've seen this series and you can't argue it created the result it was after.

 

[NICK_GIFF]

My point was based on the County umpire, I will admit the pitch did play fine in the end. But if the County umpire is actually right in saying that the home side would have been docked points then why do we have differing standards? Shouldn't County cricket be following Test cricket, after all if you have to play on these pitches in Test cricket then you would want to get as much practice playing on these types of surfaces.

Tbh it's just the opinion of one County umpire - doesn't mean that the rest would all agree with him - especially as it failed to turn into the minefield all the pitch's critics said it would after day 2.

Secondly, the pitch wasn't that unusual for The Oval, even if it was the first one like that this year. There was a similar wicket in '97 (when you had Warne ffs) and for several years in the late 90's and early 00's the Oval wicket was always a spinners paradise...because Surrey were dominating the Championship with Saqlain and Salisbury.

Yes, you read that right - even Ian Salisbury was quite good at the Oval.

 

[Owzat]

Pretty sure that wouldn't have been the case. Until this season ECB pitch inspectors were used in county matches and they generally went home after tea on day one. This year it's in the hands of the umpires, but England scored easily enough for this wicket to have been reported.

Pitch was fine, aussies simply didn't score enough runs or bowl well enough. Three scores of 300 with plenty of 50+ run partnerships is evidence enough. It wasn't the usual flat track, score 400-600 and pressure the opposition pitch is what the aussies really didn't like, it was a better contest between bat and ball. A really bad pitch would have had shooters, balls rearing up off a good length and plenty of batsmen hit on their bodies and gloves several times a Test. One or two deliveries misbehaved, but essentially it wasn't really a pitch on which wickets should have fallen quickly on. Did anyone suggest the Headingley pitch should be reported when England fell for 102 all out? No, because the aussies scored runs and won. Funnily enough there were a lot more runs in the match at the Oval than at Headingley.

It was a good Test, the only disappointment was that the contest was over in four days, how many matches last four days on supposedly "poor" pitches?!?!?

As for reporting the pitches, I'm pretty sure 15 wickets have to fall on the FIRST DAY for pitch inspectors to be called in and while 15 wickets did fall in a day - last two in England's 1st innings, all 10 aussies for 160 and then England's three in their 2nd innings - that was not on day one.

 

[Cricketdude]

. Did anyone suggest the Headingley pitch should be reported when England fell for 102 all out? No, because the aussies scored runs and won. Funnily enough there were a lot more runs in the match at the Oval than at Headingley.

Because England were the home side. Why would you jeopardize your own side?

 

[angryangy]

Australia does it (bouncy batting pitches), India does it (slow, turning wickets), so England did it.

There's so little distinction between them. Cardiff and the Oval could easily be confused for Indian pitches, while the slope at Lords is the only difference between it and the generic easy paced batting pitches that are everywhere. I don't believe Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne or Hobart are really much better.

 

[manee]

I think Ponting hit the nail on the head in the post match interview in which he said that it was a poor pitch, but both teams had to deal with it and so it had little impact on the result.

 

[Krypta]

Low scoring matches are much more entertaining. I would love to watch a match on a pitch with a par score of 150. Pity it will never happen.

 

[Owzat]

Wasn't even a low scorer

Cardiff : 1361 runs, 25 wkts (r/w 54.44)
Lords : 1357 runs, 36 wkts (r/w 37.69)
Edgbaston : 1014 runs, 25 wkts (r/w 40.56)
Headingley : 810 runs, 30 wkts (r/w 27.00)
The Oval : 1213 runs, 39 wkts (r/w 31.10)

Near half the runs at Cardiff were scored by the aussies, Headingley stands out as the lowest runs aggregate and per wicket of the five Tests and that was due to an England collapse.

I'd hardly say the pitches were that bad at all, across the board. Decent totals were achieved in every Test, no more than one total under 300 in any Test and at least two of 340+

Cardiff : 435, 674/6d and 252/9
Lords : 425, 215, 311/6d and 406
Edgbaston : 263, 376 and 375/5
Headingley : 102, 445 and 369
The Oval : 332, 160, 373/9d and 348

Only at The 'dodgy pitch' Oval were three totals of 332+ scored, although England could have reached that at Lords to make it three there. Just because the ball went through the pitch doesn't make it a bad pitch, going through it every third or fourth ball, shooting through low and steepling bounce might back up the argument to condemn the pitch but 332, 373/9d and 348 don't. At one stage people thought the aussies might make 500+ to win..........................

Owzat added 13 Minutes and 27 Seconds later...

England created a dustbowl knowing we'd go in with the four damaging quicks.

So how come the aussies went in with four quicks, did they perhaps think the ball might go through the top, keep low and think their four quicks would skittle England cheaply?

Bottom line is England made more of the pitch than the aussies, went in with the right side and even though the aussie bowlers and batsmen were supposedly superior through the series, England won. If the aussies truly were the better side of the two and didn't need to hide behind excuses, they would have shown it clearly in the Test.

The aussies had their chances in the Test. England were 268/7 and added 64 more runs for the last three wickets. The aussies were 73/0 and cruising, I doubt complaining about the pitch was foremost in their minds then. 2nd Innings England were 39/3, still well in command but effectively only just 211 in front. And then in the last innings the aussies were 86/0 and then 217/2 and 327/5 which is hardly what you'd expect for a supposed poor pitch. If the pitch were that poor you'd be expecting totals of maybe 100 or less batting last, not a total that was on course to be the highest in the match and fell only 25 runs shy of achieving just that.

There is no case, 3/4 of the innings lasted 90+ overs, the other lasted 52.5 so was hardly a skittle job and ALL FOUR INNINGS were scored at over 3 rpo - again hardly proof of a poor pitch.