Do pitches really matter when it comes to getting Test-match ready?

PAUL EDWARDS: Why are we the only Test playing country to lose a series abroad and then lay a chunk of the blame on domestic pitches?

If you want to understand something, it is often useful to put aside all you might have thought and try to look at it with fresh eyes.

For example, there is rich humour in the sight of a dozen men standing in a field and gazing at a cricket pitch. Their livelihood does not fundamentally depend on it; unlike farmers, they will not grow essential food on it. Rather, they are going to play a game on it for four days, five days or maybe as little as three hours or so, and they are therefore trying to predict how the surface will behave over the given time frame.

Quite specifically, they are attempting to foresee how a hard, seamed ball will react when it hits it at anything from 70mph upwards or whether it will at any stage be receptive to a spinning ball travelling at around 45-65 mph. For those aware of the complex ramifications of such judgements, being able to "read" such surfaces is a fascinating skill, one that can only be refined by years in the game.

Seen in this context, the notion that cricket can be simplified becomes freshly absurd.

For who can be surprised that even people professionally involved in the business are so often mistaken? How many times have you heard coaches say "we all got the pitch wrong" or commentators admit that "we expected this track to break up but it hasn't really done so". And even when presented with helpful evidence to the contrary, some captains and coaches still prefer to trust precedent and reputation. Think back to last winter's Test matches in Brisbane and Adelaide.

^{Paul Edwards argues that pitches are not as crucial in Test preparation as some say [Getty Images]}

As for spectators, heaven help us, the task is even more difficult and yet another illustration that cricket is a game meant to be played rather than watched. (And yes, I do know that watching it is still a great way to spend half a lifetime.) Obvious eccentricities of bounce, spin or even seam movement are plain enough but this is a game of subtle gradations and gradual change. Most of the people in the press box aren't allowed near the square and the notion we can tell how a wicket is going to behave from something like 80-100 yards away is fanciful.

Television is invaluable, of course, but I have heard seasoned journalists with tours and Tests on their clock confess that beyond what is bleeding obvious they haven't a clue how a pitch is behaving in the first hour of a game. And I will admit now that nothing troubles me quite so much when writing a match report as making a judgement about a wicket.

Never am I more grateful for hedge-bet words like "seems" or "appears". Compared to reading a cricket pitch, analysing character is straightforward.

More seriously, though, why are we the only Test playing country to lose a series abroad and then lay a chunk of the blame on domestic pitches? (The other nailed-on scapegoat, of course, is county cricket but apart from repeating the point that the last time we won in Australia, we played 16 four-day games, many of them in high summer, I don't want to poke that nest this week.)

"It's invaluable for potential international cricketers to play on as wide a variety of pitches as possible. But if Ben Stokes' batsmen want to perform well in India, it's plainly a good idea to practise on Indian wickets"

In 2013 and 2015 Australia lost Ashes series in England but didn't explain away their defeat by saying that wickets in Sydney or Perth were quicker than those in England. They prepared more thoroughly for the 2019 matches and had retained the urn by the time the teams went to The Oval.

All of which is not to say that I think the wickets on which county cricket is played cannot help or hinder the England Test team. I think it's invaluable for potential international cricketers to play on as wide a variety of pitches as possible. But if Ben Stokes' batsmen want to perform well in India, it's plainly a good idea to practise on Indian wickets. (Or, at least, for the ECB not to hammer a county every time a pitch helps the spinners on the first day.)

That way, they are at least a little better prepared when Virat Kohli tells them they have seen their last pitch of a tour that will offer any help to the seamers, tidings he passed on after England won the first Test at Chennai in 2021 by 227 runs, with Joe Root's quicker bowlers having had the effrontery to take nine of the wickets.

But, of course, we can't do such things at present. The international schedule is so crammed with money-making, easily forgotten one-day-internationals that preparing properly for an overseas Test series is becoming increasingly difficult for all countries, a trend that has only been exacerbated by the absurd desire to pack in yet more matches to "make up" for the many months lost to Covid-19.

^{There have been plenty of runs in the early stages of the County Championship [Getty Images]}

For the moment, though, we should surely welcome the fact that three rounds of County Championship cricket will be played in July, when it is at least more likely that warmer weather will have baked pitches a little, making them more conducive to genuine pace and spin. It will be interesting to see how Yorkshire fare against Surrey and Hampshire at Scarborough, which has been described, even by visiting cricketers, as one of the best and quickest wickets in the country.

But, of course, North Marine Road won't be Perth. We play cricket in this country on English wickets and it's about time we stopped routinely apologising for the fact, especially after a month which has seen several high scores and plenty of work for the slower bowlers. Even that, though, is not unusual, as a correspondent elsewhere recently reminded me in brusque but helpful terms.

However, the splendid people at Cricket Archive came up with this set of statistics comparing the month just ended with last April. (I think the figures are correct up to the start of the round of matches beginning on April 28.)

"The average for the team batting first is 320 this year, 321 last. The big difference is in the second innings of the match where this year it's 366 versus 293 last year. The aggregate for the first two innings is 685 this year v 615 last year. This year, there have been 21 innings of more than 400 in innings 1 and 2, last year it was 15."

"From the scores, it looks as though the pitches have improved and I think they've altered the ball slightly," said Warwickshire' head coach, Mark Robinson, who was critical of the bland uniformity of the wickets he found in county cricket when he returned to the domestic game after four years coaching the England women's team.

"It would appear that counties have made an effort to reduce the amount of grass on surfaces. At the moment we have more runs being scored and on the wickets we're using, you need to find a yard of pace or a good spinner. If teams don't have those, you might get a lot of draws in the short term but in the longer term that will produce cricketers who will make an impact in the higher level."

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