Your opinion on 3rd test wicket?

[White Ball]

An England legend has spoken

 

[flibbertyjibber]

It wasn't good, as Root says if he is getting 5-8 then it is a poor pitch. No sour grapes, it was just a poor pitch.

 

[Starfighter]

As a separate discussion over and above this particular game, how much skill is there in (under)preparing a wicket?

Don't think preparing this kind of pitch would be too different to preparing most other types of pitches. The key would be rolling it sufficiently so that it has some bounce and isn't just loose dirt. Scalping the pitch is pretty easy (which I'll use as a chance to repeat a point I made a couple of years ago, that cricket is played on grass, indeed back when the game started they used to set the stumps on the field where the bowlers wanted, and that a grassless pitch is much more unnatural than a grassy one).

I think the pitches that take real skill to prepare are the very hard, smooth bouncy pitches like they used to have at the WACA, Sabina Park and Bridgetown. You need find the right soil and have a specific watering and rolling routine to make the surface sufficiently hard that it retains the bounce and ball skids off it, otherwise you end up with an easy paced road.

 

[centurymaker]

Great Discussion!

 

[morgieb]

Could it be the fabled Seamy Road?

I mean it was definitely a dicier wicket than most other Aussie ones. Whether that's because of the pitch itself or the ball is another question.

 

[Chrish]

An England legend has spoken

Even Boycott sucking up to BCCI.. First sign of living in dystopia?

 

[artvandalay]

Silverwood, Root to discuss on making official representation over Ahmedabad pitch

The third Test concluded early in the final session of the second day, the shortest Test match since 1935

www.cricbuzz.com

Head coach Chris Silverwood says he will sit down with Joe Root to discuss whether England should make any official representations about the standard of the third Test pitch in Ahmedabad.

The game concluded early in the final session of the second day, the shortest Test match since 1935, as both England and India struggled with a surface that spun appreciably. India lost seven wickets for 46 on the second day - with Joe Root taking 5 for 8 - while England were then hustled out for just 81 in their second innings. In all, 17 wickets fell in the first two sessions of day two.

Although both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma both said the pitch was good for batting at the conclusion of the game, others, including Yuvraj Singh and Sir Alastair Cook, criticised the surface. "We saw a stat that says this pitch has spun more than any other pitch in India," Cook said on Channel 4's commentary. "We've got Virat Kohli, Joe Root - some great players of spin... also struggling. Today trying to play properly? It was nigh-on impossible."

Silverwood would not be drawn on whether England would make an official complaint to the ICC about the state of the pitch but he did say that he would be talking to Joe Root to decide if any further action should be taken. "We will be talking about certain things behind the scenes," Silverwood said.
"We are disappointed that we are sat here when there should be three days of cricket left. I am sure a few spectators are as well. At the same time, whatever the pitch did or didn't do, India ultimately played better than us on that surface. But it probably pushed us to the extremes of what most of our players, if any, have experienced.
"Joe and I have to have a sit down, have a conversation and see where we go with it. We do have to get better on these pitches and we do have to accept there's places where we could have improved, look at the first innings we had an opportunity there to score more runs."

When pressed on whether he thought touring teams had to accept any conditions they were faced with and England simply had to move on, Silverwood said: "I'm not saying we've just got to accept things, I'm just saying at this moment in time I've not got anything to add. Not in a position to say what we should or shouldn't do, it's a conversation between myself and Joe at the moment."
England's head coach was also keen to point out that as much as his batsmen struggled so too did India's, and theirs against the part-time off-spin of Root. "Let's not forget they lost eight wickets for 47 runs," Silverwood said. "A little bit of perspective here, it's not just our batters that struggled. On surfaces where one spins and one doesn't, it's quite difficult for them to play. It's proved the amount of LBWs and bowleds that both sides have had, it's not been easy at all. I can imagine both teams are talking about the same sort of thing.
"But we've got to give their spinners some credit here. [Ravichandran] Ashwin's a world-class spinner. So firstly we're against a class act there. And secondly I thought [Axar] Patel was very accurate. And when some balls turn and some balls don't, it's difficult. But equally we've got to find a way because if we see it again, we've got to be able to combat that."

England do not yet know which pitch will be used for the fourth Test at the Nahendra Modi Stadium which begins next Thursday (March 4) but Silverwood said he hoped it would be a better surface. Whether that is likely or not is open to debate. India need to avoid defeat to secure their place in the final of the World Test Championship and could opt for a similarly spin friendly surface to give them the best chance.
If the pitch is similar to those for the second and third Tests, Silverwood hopes his players have learnt some lessons from their experiences. "You look at the guys we've got in there, your Popes, Crawleys, Sibleys, all these guys coming through this experience, as tough as it is at the moment, will hopefully galvanise them," he said. "When they do get on flat surfaces, better surfaces, will make them even more hungry and desperate to make sure they get the runs on those surfaces.
"Hopefully they do take a lot from it, and next time they come onto a surface or experience a situation like this, it won't be as much of a shock to them. Hopefully they will have had a think about how they use their skills to combat what's in front of them. As tough as it is and as painful as it is at this moment, hopefully we can take some good lessons."

Silverwood also explained England's decision to select just one spinner in their side for the third Test and said that Dom Bess would come back into contention for the final game of the series. "Joe Root has got five for eight. So actually the second spinner did alright for us," Sivlerwood said. "But we did expect the wicket to hold up longer than it did to be honest, having looked at it. And equally, throughout training, using the pink ball and looking back in history on pink ball Tests, the ball swung for us.
"Jimmy and co all got movement with the ball during practise. So we genuinely felt we had the right side out there with the experience that we had and having two of our bowlers in the top ten in the world in the rankings. We felt that, with this pink ball, it would have been an opportunity for those two to make a big impact on the game for us. Hence the selection we went for.
"He's [Bess] in contention. He was left out of this one because of potential movement we could have got out of the pink ball. We've got two bowlers in the top 10 and if they can move the ball around, they\re a handful. All the evidence was that it moved in training, in the middle and the nets. From Bessy's point of view I wouldn't read too much into that. He's played an important part in helping us win games in the past and I'm sure he will do again in the future."

 

[honestbharani]

I think it was a bad pitch but I dont believe opposition should complain about pitches unless there is active physical danger.

Now, if they wanna complain about the landing area issues alone, that is a seperate thing.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

This discussion on the pitch has lasted longer than the actual test match.

move on ****s

 

[Spark]

Even Boycott sucking up to BCCI.. First sign of living in dystopia?

You're saying that as if "batsmen are so spoilt these days" hasn't been a basic staple of his cricket analysis for thirty years.

 

[Flem274*]

i tend to agree it was the perfect storm of a 'normal' turner and the unknown (in indian conditions) pink ball pairing together for memes.

the pink ball is great fun in SENA where it has been widely used because there's always something for the quicks but you probably want a slightly flatter deck to keep things from getting out of hand.

in saying that i thoroughly enjoyed this game. cricket would be a bit dumb if every game was like this but come on we all secretly hope for games like these a couple of times per year. it's why random tests in the middle of the night in south africa or england on a green one (or in asia on a turner) have so many cwers viewing the tour thread out of nowhere.

 

[Kirkut]

Could it be the fabled Seamy Road?

Seamy roads provide a balance needed in the game, both good batsmen and bowlers can make the most of them. Except for SCG, almost all Aussie pitches are seamy roads.

 

[Kirkut]

Washington Sundar has played a key role in the two GREATEST victories of the Indian side - The Nidahas Trophy and the Gabba Test. He is already better than Lyon forever.

Nidahas Trophy has to be the most comical cricket series I've watched till now. If the 1 run loss in T20 World Cup and Binny taking 6/4 was not enough, how about getting hit for a six off the last ball when 5 needed?

 

[Prince EWS]

#moterasospinny

 

[honestbharani]

Nidahas Trophy has to be the most comical cricket series I've watched till now. If the 1 run loss in T20 World Cup and Binny taking 6/4 was not enough, how about getting hit for a six off the last ball when 5 needed?

*critical

Yes, indeed.

 

[Senile Sentry]

On The Spinners In The First Three Tests

On its media website, the BCCI publishes detailed scorecards of cricket matches. For some series like the ongoing India v England Test series this also includes hawkeye data. I looked up this ball-by-ball data because I wanted to see what it said about how much the ball has spun and how the...

cricketingview.substack.com

So much for Motera being a spinny deck. Apparently it offered the least turn among all the three wickets till now.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

He is spot on here.

 

[ankitj]

That "outbound marketing" reference though. What in hell

 

[Daemon]

On The Spinners In The First Three Tests

On its media website, the BCCI publishes detailed scorecards of cricket matches. For some series like the ongoing India v England Test series this also includes hawkeye data. I looked up this ball-by-ball data because I wanted to see what it said about how much the ball has spun and how the...

cricketingview.substack.com

So much for Motera being a spinny deck. Apparently it offered the least turn among all the three wickets till now.

Couple of questions

A note about the record: The BCCI website does not publish all the details of the hawkeye data. They publish the pitching line and length (basically, the pitching point), and beehive (which is the point relative to the stumps at which the ball crosses the plane of the stumps.) The base of the middle stump is the origin. For the line of the ball, a negative figure (in metres) represents the off-side for the right hander. For example, a line of -0.3, is 30 cm. to the off-side of the middle-stump for the right hander. A ball pitching on right-hander’s leg stump would have a line figure of about +0.11, while a ball pitching on the right-hander’s off stump would have a line figure of about -0.11.

I use the average deviation from the vertical (the line from middle stump to middle stump down the length of the pitch) to estimate turn.

How does this take into account angles? In particular Joe Root and Axar Patel bowling wide of the crease, pitching it on middle and getting it to straighten. Wouldn't the data here show +/- 0.00?

Also the distribution chart in his first point show seems to show a higher median deviation for the third test. There's an even distribution of deliveries that deviated around 0-0.25m in the third test whereas it's more of a decreasing trend in the first two Tests.

 

[ankitj]