Unravelling the intricacies of cricketing pitches

To understand a sport, it is important to understand the intricate details involved with it.

The above mentioned quote holds good for every sport but more so for cricket in India. This game is the life breath of millions of players and fans. In India, with the population reaching the 120 crore mark, the game is gaining more momentum by the minute. One of the most important element involved in this sport is the ‘pitches’ that is used to play on.

Cricketing turfs in India, the traditional pitches

In India, the ground is in such a way that there is no lush green grass. The ground, though has a little amount of grass, is not sufficient enough to call it lush. Also, the pitches are in such a way that they help spin bowling. India is traditionally known for its spin friendly pitches and practicing pace attack in India, though has become increasingly popular, was never the same as practicing in the English or Australian pitches.

Having practiced in these hard pitches which offers much for the spinners, the bowlers are less than prepared to face the lethal pitches abroad. In the recent tour of New Zealand, the Indian pace bowlers buckled when they had to deliver the final blow which over-shadowed their good performances in the other innings. The reason for this, though cannot be pointed out only as the lack of preparations when it came to understanding the pitches, it is an important factor. This factor is rather talked about but nothing much is done about it.

The problem at hand

The most important problem at hand is the fact that Indian bowlers are not trained to bowl in the lush green pitches where the ball bounces at crazy angles and the swing is so lethal that it is rather difficult for them to understand the movement of the ball. They are not given proper and in-depth training on different pitches so that they have a certain level of understanding about the same.

When Bhuvneshwar Kumar was first picked for a series abroad against England in June 2013, he took time to understand the pitches. He was not a complete failure but he did not fare exceptionally well either. Pace bowlers who were lethal at the home grounds were easily tamed by foreign players when it came to matches abroad because of this lack of knowledge on the pitches.

“The boards involved will have to make the call regarding preparing pitches. Usually everything is very result oriented. If they prepare a wicket which will favour the fast bowlers, the matches get over in two-three days which is not something they want,” says Gowtham Ganesh, a II Division India Cements player.

“India does not forgive aggression. Sreesanth has made mistakes, I accept. But he was well within the limit for most of the time. The media made a big deal out of it. Dhoni publicly criticized him. When media is harsh on you, your captain doesn’t support you, pitches does not favour bowling. After all that how do you expect him to deliver the same way he did at first?” says an angry cricketer from Sashtra University, Gokul Ram.

The competitive attitude in preparing pitches

With competition hovering over every cricket match, it has become an unwritten rule for every nation to prepare the best of their pitches so that the visiting team finds it unnervingly hard to acclimatize to the new turf. This acts as a means for them to say that ‘they’re superior’ in their home ground.

Recently, before the New Zealand-India series in New Zealand, said the home team’s coach, “I think everyone’s aware of the type of surface that we’d like. We’ve been in India before and they’ve changed the pitch the day before a game because it wasn’t quite as dry as they would like. We certainly don’t get any favours when we travel, so I’d be disappointed if we provide any at home.”

This shows the level of competition that every nation plays when it comes to preparing pitches for a particular series.

“Usually when two teams play, what matters is victory. So they always play it safe and prepare pitches which are friendly to the home team so as to not take any chances,” says Gowtham.

Looking into the future of cricket:

In the recent past, the concept of ‘artificial pitches’ have come up and has gained a lot of popularity. At many school and college levels, this concept is being implemented so as to prepare the cricketers to face any kind of pitch anywhere in the world.

Last year, in a cricket camp that was held in the summer, Perks higher secondary school laid artificial turfs with different combinations of grass, mud, soil and cement in order to aim swing, bounce and spin. There were six different kinds of pitches that were made available. The coaches were brought in from Haryana Cricket Association and Jharkhand cricket association. One of the coaches said, “It is great to train kids with these professional pitches. These pitches help them in understanding the intricacies of different pitches further.”

Also, various business organizations are coming up with artificial turf pitches. To name a few there are Ajaib Enterprises, FieldTurf, Durafit Floors and TigerTurf which have implemented preparation of these turfs.