Best current test batting lineup

[R!TTER]

Yep, like in the South Africa series just gone. So good for seamers that Sri Lanka's seamer captain bowled a massive total of 6.3 overs across two tests.

Yeah remember Starc bowling left arm orthodox, or Steyn with his leg spinners in 2014/15

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Ahh Brett Schultz, he was a seriously good bowler. Left arm express with a poewrful yet somewhat awkward action, vaugely like a saffer Mitch Johnson.

 

[stephen]

Spin of all varieties is notoriously difficult to bowl in Australia. Stuart MacGill has a shield average of 34 FFS. It has nothing to do with doctored pitches.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

True, Warne's numbers for Victoria aren't exactly too flash either iirc

 

[Maximas]

Sri Lanka actually has pretty decent pitches for seamers early in the day (or at least used to). Boult and Southee really made their names in SL

That particular series in 2012 was in Novemeber, during monsoon season, hence the abundance of swing on offer (Nuwan Kulasekara also had a pretty decent series) the pitches were actually fairly flat and took a bit of turn iirc.

Yep, like in the South Africa series just gone. So good for seamers that Sri Lanka's seamer captain bowled a massive total of 6.3 overs across two tests.

This says more about SAs ineptness against spin than the pitch conditions themselves. Certainly the pitches were more helpful to the spinners than the seamers, but at both Galle and SSC there was inconsistent pace/bounce that a resourceful seamer could have made use of, and in SL both conventional and reverse swing tends to come into the equation depending on the time of year. Worth remembering that in 2016 Faf was quite open about wanting pitches that neutralised Herath and the pace bounce and movement on offer was always going to give the SL batsmen more headaches.

Some of the pitches SL played on in NZ offered very little to Herath and co, but NZ has always been a bit of a greentop or road kind of place, with occasional exceptions (Sunil Narine took a bag of wickets at Hamilton once?)

 

[Starfighter]

This says more about SAs ineptness against spin than the pitch conditions themselves. Certainly the pitches were more helpful to the spinners than the seamers, but at both Galle and SSC there was inconsistent pace/bounce that a resourceful seamer could have made use of, and in SL both conventional and reverse swing tends to come into the equation depending on the time of year. Worth remembering that in 2016 Faf was quite open about wanting pitches that neutralised Herath and the pace bounce and movement on offer was always going to give the SL batsmen more headaches.

Funny how two of the most resourceful seamers around failed to utilise said inconsistent pace and bounce. Maybe the friendliness of the pitches to pace bowling was quite accurately reflected by SL's bowling breakdown.

 

[Maximas]

*some home teams

Indeed, others are more concerned with ensuring 5 day games to secure maximum ticket sales and such, India's tours of England and Australia about 3 or 4 years ago very much attest to this. Perhaps the ICC ratings system for pitches acts as some sort of deterrent to these countries also

 

[Maximas]

Funny how two of the most resourceful seamers around failed to utilise said inconsistent pace and bounce. Maybe the friendliness of the pitches to pace bowling was quite accurately reflected by SL's bowling breakdown.

Rabada did particularly well on day 1 at Galle, both he and Ngidi were pretty unlucky on day 1 at SSC too, they were at least able to maintain pressure in order to allow Maharaj to collect wickets at the other end.

Again, SLs bowling breakdown said as much about how SA batsmen were dealing with spin as the pitches did, if not more

 

[TheJediBrah]

This says more about SAs ineptness against spin than the pitch conditions themselves.

nah not really, you're being far too generous. They were genuine dustbowls. A team with supposedly some of the best fast bowlers of the century in it wouldn't have Keshav Maharaj bowl 40 overs in an 81 over innings if there was plenty in it for the seamers.

 

[StephenZA]

Rabada did particularly well on day 1 at Galle, both he and Ngidi were pretty unlucky on day 1 at SSC too, they were at least able to maintain pressure in order to allow Maharaj to collect wickets at the other end.

Again, SLs bowling breakdown said as much about how SA batsmen were dealing with spin as the pitches did, if not more

IS that not talking more about the quality of the SA fast bowlers than the state of the pitch...

(In no way am I saying the pitches are bad or that the current SA batting line-up dont suck against spin).

 

[OverratedSanity]

Again, if you want to use this particular series as an example, fine. But as I said, it's the exception, it's not the norm. Steyn took a 9fer to win the series back in 2014, Ishant blew SL away on a genuine greentop in the 2015 series decider and Dhammika took a bunch of wickets throughout that series, Harris and ****ing Copeland got a bag of wickets back in 2011 iirc, Southee and Broad around that same time.

It's not that I'm saying these pitches are all Lord's 2014-esque greentops but lots of overseas pacers have made game winning contributions in SL on helpful pitches over the last few years so it's odd to see them being singled out for something like this when India is way worse. UAE too, but only at times, like the series where a near-peak Johnson was reduced to a decent containing role.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Again, SLs bowling breakdown said as much about how SA batsmen were dealing with spin as the pitches did, if not more

Clearly both factors, as is the ability of Sri Lanka's available fast bowlers (much less than their spinners).

I'd still say conditions were comfortably the biggest factor though. Play the same game with the same teams on a typical South African pitch and the bowler breakdowns would look very different. Switch out the team SL were bowling to for a more spin adept side and I doubt it would change anywhere near as dramatically.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Again, if you want to use this particular series as an example, fine. But as I said, it's the exception, it's not the norm. Steyn took a 9fer to win the series back in 2014, Ishant blew SL away on a genuine greentop in the 2015 series decider and Dhammika took a bunch of wickets throughout that series, Harris and ****ing Copeland got a bag of wickets back in 2011 iirc, Southee and Broad around that same time.

It's not that I'm saying these pitches are all Lord's 2014-esque greentops but lots of overseas pacers have made game winning contributions in SL on helpful pitches over the last few years so it's odd to see them being singled out for something like this when India is way worse. UAE too, but only at times, like the series where a near-peak Johnson was reduced to a decent containing role.

We're only working with what recent events have shown us though.

Just from an Aus perspective the most recent tours to SL and BD were on openly doctored pitches. The home boards and curators didn't try to hide the fact and discussed it with the press.

Whereas the India tour in 2017 had maybe 1 really dodgy pitch that was potentially "doctored" and it backfired on India. The last 2 Tests were definitely not doctored in to help India at all.

Historically maybe India has been worse but ancient history

 

[OverratedSanity]

Australia definitely missed a huge chance to win hat series. Dharamshala had ridiculous amounts of bounce for a SC pitch, the Aussie pacers should've done way more damage than they did.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Australia definitely missed a huge chance to win hat series. Dharamshala had ridiculous amounts of bounce for a SC pitch, the Aussie pacers should've done way more damage than they did.

Funny that Aus won in Pune and India won in Dharamsala considering the conditions

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yeah best thing about that series.

 

[Starfighter]

Again, if you want to use this particular series as an example, fine. But as I said, it's the exception, it's not the norm. Steyn took a 9fer to win the series back in 2014, Ishant blew SL away on a genuine greentop in the 2015 series decider and Dhammika took a bunch of wickets throughout that series, Harris and ****ing Copeland got a bag of wickets back in 2011 iirc, Southee and Broad around that same time.

It's not that I'm saying these pitches are all Lord's 2014-esque greentops but lots of overseas pacers have made game winning contributions in SL on helpful pitches over the last few years so it's odd to see them being singled out for something like this when India is way worse. UAE too, but only at times, like the series where a near-peak Johnson was reduced to a decent containing role.

Harris took those wickets on a pitch which had nary a blade of grass on it, and if you think the Ishant pitch was a green top then the definition of 'green' must've changed somewhere.

The reason why Sri Lanka gets singled out it because it is so obvious that they need to produce certain conditions to let their bowling penetrate, and because they seem to go out of their way to give tour matches in unrepresentative conditions against an unrepresentative attack. They even prepared green wickets in the Australian nets on that tour. How petty can you get? India does the same thing - I couldn't help but notice that the pitch on one of the tour matches was green than many cricinfo posters had told me was possible in India - but they don't seem to be quite so brazen about it.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Harris took those wickets on a pitch which had nary a blade of grass on it, and if you think the Ishant pitch was a green top then the definition of 'green' must've changed somewhere.

The reason why Sri Lanka gets singled out it because it is so obvious that they need to produce certain conditions to let their bowling penetrate, and because they seem to go out of their way to give tour matches in unrepresentative conditions against an unrepresentative attack. They even prepared green wickets in the Australian nets on that tour. How petty can you get? India does the same thing - I couldn't help but notice that the pitch on one of the tour matches was green than many cricinfo posters had told me was possible in India - but they don't seem to be quite so brazen about it.

Doesn't help that they literally go the press and talk all about how they're going to try to prepare dustbowls to help their spinners against touring non-Asian sides. Can't really complain if someone accuses them of pitch doctoring when they don't even try to hide it.

 

[Maximas]

nah not really, you're being far too generous. They were genuine dustbowls. A team with supposedly some of the best fast bowlers of the century in it wouldn't have Keshav Maharaj bowl 40 overs in an 81 over innings if there was plenty in it for the seamers.

Hmm, i'm more trying to say that pace bowlers weren't completely out of the game, the fact that SL had 3 spinners playing probably says a lot about how SAs batsmen were coping with spin and also the quality of SLs available pace bowlers.

I'm taking issue mainly with the point that SL playing heaps of spinners and Lakmal barely bowling is evidence of extremely (or unnaturally) spin-friendly conditions, they were playing to their strengths and to the opposition weakness, conditions certainly played a part though yes. It made a 3 pronged spin attack viable, but not necessary, worth remembering that at no point during the series did SL put up a really good total, SA bowlers were on top throughout each first innings and only when they were downwards skiing in the 2nd innings with a big lead were they bleeding runs or lacking pressure, that was with a 2:3 spin to pace attack at galle and a 1:3 spin to pace attack at SSC

 

[Maximas]

It's no secret that SL doctors pitches and makes unrepresentative tour game pitches, but they've been on the receiving end on tour as well, hence my original assessment back on page 3, this phenomena isn't consistent across the board though as I originally appeared to imply