*Official* Australia in India 2023

[Burgey]

Marnus dumping them in the rough and bowling seven right handers around their legs would be hilarious.

Probably says a fair bit that I genuinely didn't even consider Agar might be able to do this

 

[Spark]

Lol come on, I generally share this view but rigging it to this specific extent is taking the piss.

It's objectively funny though and it'd be even more hilarious if we lost.

Even, and frankly especially, if Australia won by means of exploiting the differential nature of the surface somehow, that would still be absurd and devalue the achievement.

Like let's suppose it's so extreme that Australia reorients its entire selection to account for it - picks all right handers, picks Swepson and Agar because they can turn it out of that area, and wins comfortably because India tried to play normally. That isn't an expression of superior cricketing skill, it's an expression that Australia exploited a dumb gimmick better than India and that you don't actually have to be better at cricket to win Test matches, you just have to have a better gimmick.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

That isn't an expression of superior cricketing skill, it's an expression that Australia exploited a dumb gimmick better than India and that you don't actually have to be better at cricket to win Test matches, you just have to have a better gimmick.

The second test is now a ladder match.

 

[Gob]

A pressure-activated switch at a half-volley length outside the stumps of the left-hander, which releases a spray of Lynx Africa directly in the batsman's eyes.

Put a camera man inside the crack as Channel 9 used to

 

[Burgey]

Are we looking at a 3pm AEDT start for this? Awesome time of day for watching back here.

Discussing the series with renowned CW member and good friend @silentstriker yesterday, and he was saying it's like a 2am start where he is.

Probably a good thing for all of us

 

[Spark]

The second test is now a ladder match.

Super Mario 64 speedrun any% race

 

[OverratedSanity]

Like let's suppose it's so extreme that Australia reorients its entire selection to account for it - picks all right handers, picks Swepson and Agar because they can turn it out of that area, and wins comfortably because India tried to play normally.

Uh, what? No. That'd be badass if Australia managed it. Adapting to such a crazy situation would show real flexibility, don't reduce it to a "dumb gimmick".

Anyway I think some people's brains have been successfully broken before the series even begins. It looks hilarious and a little unfair to Australia from the images but I'll wait and see how the pitch actually plays before concluding that the entire match and the performances are without merit.

 

[Son Of Coco]

View attachment 34508
hahaha

Even if they play Agar, don't think it would really work a cos Agar is terrible and b cos India right handers can just kick it away. Handscomb would have to play I guess.

Only hope Aust has here is win the toss and bat

Was this pitch ordered off a restaurant menu?

 

[cnerd123]

My complaint is very specifically about (supposedly, this is all hypothetical at this stage) different parts of the pitch prepared differently. If you can find one (one) example of that happening in the last ten years then I'd be fascinated because this sure is a first for me. Prepare a raging turner all you like, that's fine.

It's quite innovative I'll give you that. Funny too.

But it's not that different to when a crack/footmarks appear on one side of the pitch, or when one boundary is shorter than the other. This is just cricket. Conditions are never uniformly fair to every player on the field. It's so dumb to expect that. Most pitches aren't uniform across their surface anyways, even without an attempt to rig it.

 

[Spark]

Uh, what? No. That'd be badass if Australia managed it. Adapting to such a crazy situation would show real flexibility, don't reduce it to a "dumb gimmick".

Anyway I think some people's brains have been successfully broken before the series even begins. It looks hilarious and a little unfair to austrefdom the images but I'll wait and see how the pitch actually plays before concluding that the entire match and the performances are without merit.

To be clear this is all hypothetical, and some tweets and one photo is far from definitive proof of what's going on. I was just baffled by some of the responses to the idea.

But it's not that different to when a crack/footmarks appear on one side of the pitch, or when one boundary is shorter than the other. This is just cricket. Conditions are never uniformly fair to every player on the field. It's so dumb to expect that. Most pitches aren't uniform across their surface anyways, even without an attempt to rig it.

We can ackowledge that natural variation exists is unavoidable without endorsing the curators embedding huge amounts of unnatural variation from the start.

 

[sphynx]

Even, and frankly especially, if Australia won by means of exploiting the differential nature of the surface somehow, that would still be absurd and devalue the achievement.

Like let's suppose it's so extreme that Australia reorients its entire selection to account for it - picks all right handers, picks Swepson and Agar because they can turn it out of that area, and wins comfortably because India tried to play normally. That isn't an expression of superior cricketing skill, it's an expression that Australia exploited a dumb gimmick better than India and that you don't actually have to be better at cricket to win Test matches, you just have to have a better gimmick.

The hilarious thing is the umpires will be the first to warn an Australian batsman for entering the danger area if they charge of their crease down the right handers line.

Look forward to the 30cm wide unmown landing strip we serve up to India next time at the Gabba.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Not exactly. It's obvious they are leaving certain parts of the wicket dry (out side the left handers off stump) to take advantage of the left handed heavy Aust batting line up. Making the whole pitch dry I get it but I have not seen this before

I don't think this is right but couldn't be ****ed to argue about it

Yeah, basically you prepare the pitch (all of it) to the best of your ability given the prevailing conditions in that country and the weather at the time.

If the pitch remains like this (if it even is like this !?), it's pitch doctoring.

I guess we'll find out when it starts.

 

[duffer]

Are we looking at a 3pm AEDT start for this? Awesome time of day for watching back here.

Discussing the series with renowned CW member and good friend @silentstriker yesterday, and he was saying it's like a 2am start where he is.

Probably a good thing for all of us

Have a job interview at 4pm tomorrow. Laaame

 

[Burgey]

Have a job interview at 4pm tomorrow. Laaame

India will be all out by the time it's done.

If you're still in Sydney, we should catch up and watch an arvo session

 

[sphynx]

And this is why the BG will never ever have a patch on the Ashes.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Anyway @Spark is rigging the pitch in this way to make it tougher for a specific kind of player (left handed batsman) worse than ensuring that the pitch offers no turn so that an entire bowling discipline (spinners), or indeed quick bowlers on certain slow flat decks are worthless? In spirit and effect on the game, both are quite similar I'd say.

This situation looks hilarious and wrong because I've never seen it happen before but I'm not sure it's actually that much worse than pitches that make certain kinds of bowlers useless. Am I wrong here?

 

[Burgey]

You could argue that about fast bowlers on flat or spinning decks tbh.

I guess there's always been a preconception a pitch would have certain characteristics, whatever those characteristics might be. I can't say I've seen a situation where certain parts of a pitch are prepped to behave differently to others on the same surface before.

Anyway, no one knows what it'll be like yet. I don't think anyone who's worth taking seriously these days thinks if you go to the SC and get served up a bunsen that it's somehow untoward. That sort of thinking went out years ago among people who are serious watchers of the game. Likewise, being a lefty you always had a traditional sort of disadvantage as a game wore on because there were more RFM bowlers than not, so there would be more rough to a lefty than a right hander. Again, nothing unusual or unreasonable about that before.

Again, I can't say I've ever seen a deck prepped so certain parts of it behave differently to others on the same pitch. It's sort of the equivalent of having a side stacked with lefties and taking the hose before the toss to a good length on a RH off stump on an otherwise flat wicket.

It's certainly... different, if that's what's happening.

 

[Spark]

Anyway @Spark is rigging the pitch in this way to make it tougher for a specific kind of player (left handed batsman) worse than ensuring that the pitch offers no turn so that an entire bowling discipline (spinners) are worthless? In spirit and effect on the game, both are quite similar I'd say.

This situation looks hilarious and wrong because I've never seen it happen before but I'm not sure it's actually that much worse than pitches that make certain kinds of bowlers useless. Am I wrong here?

Part of it is that a lot of that is simply unavoidable. Traditional Indian pitches are never going to be rapid WACA-esque monsters and the Gabba is never going to turn square on Day 1. That's fine, and good, we want variation in conditions in international cricket, and of course there's some amount of natural variation always in play too. But I think there's a difference between differences in general pitch conditions between countries and difference in pitch on the same pitch, whereby two players playing in the same game are experiencing fundamentally different conditions from the start of the game.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Overblown IMO. Australia's left handers are Warner (can't score in Asia anyway), Head (lol nuff said), Carey (sweeps everything) and Khawaja who's the only real threat and they already tried keeping him out of the country.

Anyway @Spark is rigging the pitch in this way to make it tougher for a specific kind of player (left handed batsman) worse than ensuring that the pitch offers no turn so that an entire bowling discipline (spinners) are worthless? In spirit and effect on the game, both are quite similar I'd say.

This situation looks hilarious and wrong because I've never seen it happen before but I'm not sure it's actually that much worse than pitches that make certain kinds of bowlers useless. Am I wrong here?

I don't think you're wrong, it's just a novelty.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

But it's not that different to when a crack/footmarks appear on one side of the pitch

Lol what