To say there was a bit of noise about the 1st Test’s surface at Nagpur would be quite the understatement.
Images on social media surfaced days before a ball was bowled of what looked like a wicket that would behave differently depending on if you batted left handed or right handed.
Cricket conspirators were up in arms about India’s “Pitch doctoring” considering they were rumored to be playing 3 spinners and 6 of Australia’s batsmen were left-handers, it lead to quite an awkward situation.
The Aussie players came out to bat on Day 1 and seemingly proved the journos right. It was impossible for left handers to bat on and the Aussie’s were dismissed in 63 overs for 177.
The Indians on the other hand walked out and made it look like a road, they piled on 400 runs very easily and dismissed Australia in 33 overs for a dismal 91.
Despite all the noise about the surface, the ICC did not give it a “Poor” or even “Below Average” rating and the Aussie’s were basically told to suck it up. It’s not easy to play in India and sooking about the deck isn’t going to get you anywhere.
I thought I’d dust off my old Wisdens and go through the scorecards from games where the ICC did indeed rate Test wickets as “Below Average” or “Poor” to see what a bad/dangerous deck actually looks like.
Australia v South Africa, The Gabba 2022
This one stings a lot for me because I had tickets to Day 3.
It’s the game that everyone has been talking about seemingly all Summer. The Gabba Curators put a green monster on and 34 wickets fell in a day and a half.
They actually prepared a very similar surface for the QLD v WA Shield game in early December and the batsmen didn’t struggle one bit, Bryce Street 83 (182) and Joe Burn 72 (203) dug in and really worked hard to score runs against an WA attack that included Lance Morris who was then called up to the Australian team.
Cameron Bancroft found the green monster easy to score on too, his 164* (448) showed the curators that they could leave a bit of extra grass on the surface and the batsmen didn’t struggle that much at all. The match even finished as a draw.
Was the surface actually below average if Bancroft could face 448 rocks? Or was how bad South Africa turned out to be the reason the curators got dragged through the media?
Australia vs England, MCG 2018
1054 runs, only 24 wickets and a draw was how the Boxing Day Test in the 2017/18 Ashes finished up.
The Aussies were dismissed for 327 runs in the first dig and then Alastair Cook came out and batted every cricket fan in the world to sleep.
Sir Alstair batted for 634 minutes (put your calculators away that’s 10 hours and 34 minutes) and finished with 244 off a massive 409 balls. Did I mention he was not out as well.
Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle gave the MCG wicket a “Poor” rating which was the first time in history an Australian deck had received such a rating.
South Africa vs India, Wanderers 2017
“Excessively steep, unpredictable bounce, and excessive seam movement” were the notes that Match Referee Andy Pycroft gave this Wanderers Pitch back in 2017.
It looked like a belter or a wicket to bowl on Day 1 however things took a turn on Day 2 and 3 when length balls started to rear and strike batsmen.
Both South African and Indian players were struck multiple times and when Dean Elgar was struck in the head of a short of a length ball, the umpires took the players off the field.
The game continued and India finished with a win by 63 runs but the ground was given three demerit points by the ICC. If a ground earns 5 points in a five year span, the ground is banned for a year from hosting Test Cricket.
India v Australia, Pune 2017
This is the wicket that many were expecting in Nagpur.
Against the Curators wishes, India requested a turner in Pune and planned to spin their way to another Test win over Australia.
It didn’t go the way they planned with Australia batting first and scoring 260.
Then came on Steve O’Keefe who took the game away from India. He finished with match figures of 12/70 and India’s combined 212 was there worst ever aggregate score in a home test.
Chris Broad gave the pitch a rating on poor and blamed “Loose soil on both ends and spinners’ deliveries exploding from the surface early in the match”.
The ground was given a warning and then Head Curator Pandurang Salgaoncar was given a 6 month ban by the ICC for sharing information about the wicket with bookmakers.
England vs India, Trent Bridge 2014
Boony doesn’t muck around and simply told curators their wicket was “too flat” when he submitted his “poor” rating of the pitch.
Journos labeled it the “Chiefs Executive’s Pitch” and claimed that it was put on as a road to sell as many tickets as possible and they would’ve got their moneys worth. There was a truckload of runs scored.
1344 was the final total with 146 to Murali Vijay, 154 to Joe Root and even 81 to Jimmy Anderson.
The next Test at Trent Bridge the Curator put on a big green seamer that saw Australia dismissed for just 60. Stuart Broad got a couple of wickets and that’s all that needs to be said about him.
Perhaps a big middle finger from the groundsman in reply to Boony’s report?