Been there, done that: Thorpe’s tips on dealing with minefields

Sitting at the Green Park watching batsmen negotiate a tricky track reminds Graham Thorpe of many such days during his own playing career...

Sitting at the Green Park watching batsmen negotiate a tricky track reminds Graham Thorpe of many such days during his own playing career —days when the pitch provided the ball with a mind of its own and dealing with the vital dilemma of being on the front or back foot decided a batsman’s destiny.

The former England batsman, who finished with a Test average of 45, may not get into many dream World XIs, but draw up a list of batsmen with the ability to tiptoe on a minefield and the Englishman comes to mind before one moves on to the second set of fingers.

With Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman facing Paul Harris and the battery of South African quicks, Thorpe speaks about a similar hot day six summers ago, a day he spent facing Muttiah Muralitharan on an unpredictable Colombo pitch. His 118 saw England win the series 2-1. This was about a year after Thorpe, on a fading Karachi evening, had famously made 64 not out on a diabolical fifth-day pitch to help England win the series 1-0.

So what’s the trick? Thorpe smiles: “It’s a million-dollar question, you have to find a happy balance between playing on the front or back foot. You have to keep a positive frame of mind. You can’t thrust on to the front foot. The skill is in being able to play as late as you can, because if the ball is darting around and you thrust the front foot out, it might pop up,” he says.

That would mean that the backfoot is the place to be, something the South Africans did while playing Harbhajan Singh in the first innings. It isn’t that simple though. “The other thing is to try and not get pushed back too much. It’s important to get forward as well. But there will always be a short ball to deal with,” says Thorpe.

There are a few more other ‘must dos’ that batsmen need to keep in mind when they encounter a difficult track, Thorpe says. “One can bat out of the crease, keep an open stance, stick to a gameplan and not try too many things. But the most important thing is to rotate the strike. You can’t get stuck at one end.”

Another area the batsmen can exploit to their advantage is the mindset of the bowlers. “Sometimes, when the pitch is bad, there is just as much pressure on the bowlers. As a batsman, you have to keep that in mind. When the bowlers can’t get you out on a bad surface, they start trying too much,” says Thorpe.

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Ask him a Harris vs Harbhajan question and he says the Indian off-spinner has a better chance of taking wickets on this pitch. “Harris is more of a skidder. You don’t want to be cutting him too much. You need to be going forward to him. Harbhajan can vary his pace much better than Harris,” he says.

Thorpe signs off by reeling off a ‘best players on worst pitches’ list. He speaks about his former skipper Nasser Hussain, India’s coach Gary Kirsten. Dravid makes it as well. And though he doesn’t say it himself, Thorpe would tiptoe into that list any day.