Pitches are important but also an easy excuse

What we get, though, is the point of how important is pitch preparation, whether in Kolkata, Karachi, Sydney, Centurion, Harare or Galle. Of the venues mentioned here, though, only Centurion has true bounce and gives the batmen and bowlers a fair chance.

Hilbert Smit, the groundsman at the famed South African venue, suggests that to get a Test pitch right takes about 10 days of pre-match preparation. It doesn’t always come out perfect but you get a surface for an even contest and provide entertainment for one of the most popular grounds in the world.

Does the South African Test captain, or team management, come along and put their fingers in trying to influence the preparation? Well, as the Safs haven’t had a decent spinner in almost half a century, it is all about fast or swing bowling. So no, they don’t add their 50 cents worth. What, then, if the result of the series is riding in the outcome of winning the Centurion Test? Well, the Safs have always backed themselves at Centurion. It is that type of pitch; that type of ground.

Former Safs captain Jackie McGlew believes that, in his playing days, South African curators prepared pitches that helped touring teams more than the Safs as touring teams usually had a class spinner or two in the side and the pitch played into the hands of the tourists.

Since the end of isolation, however, only Australia have managed to either draw or win a series; they have that type of attitude that gives them a psychological advantage.

Bob Blair, a former New Zealand Test fast bowler of the 1950s, believed the way out was to scrap the toss and allow the opponents to bat first. That way, he said, Test surfaces will become better and both sides will be given an opportunity to win the game.

In England in 1956, the summer that Jim Laker took his 19 wickets, the surfaces were sandy and dry, but it was left to the groundsman to prepare what he felt would help England. And Len Hutton’s side in England in 1954/55 had Frank Tyson to blitz the Poms to victory on surfaces designed to aid the pace and swing of the Australians, among them the late Keith Miller.

Why, the first Test after World War II (March 1946) helped change history. The first pitch at Wellington’s Basin Reserve was too wet and a second one was cut two strips away. A four-day game was over in less than two as the pace of Miller and Ray Lindwall and the spin of Bill O’Rielly was too much for the puny Kiwi batsmen.

It took two years before the ICC recognised that game as a Test as the protocols of what constituted a first-class game was not written until mid-1947, and was as a direct result of that game at the Basin Reserve.

Yet argument has long surrounded pitch preparation and its importance. Some groundsmen know how to treat a surface and provide a good entertaining game. The Australians suggest that not all pitches are doctored to suit the home team. The only difference is doing your homework, getting that side of it right and preparing for the game.

Or, as Ian Chappell suggests, team preparation is as important as is Test pitch preparation; it is a matter of getting it right if you have the right bowlers and the right mindset. But if you misread a pitch and get the basics wrong, don’t blame the groundsman for your mistakes.