Are soft pitches rewarding old-fashioned values?
Derek Pringle says soft pitches in the Champions Trophy are rewarding good old-fashioned values
Global tournaments like the Champions Trophy have long acted as waypoints signposting the latest fashions in cricket, such as the Dilscoop and the slower-ball bouncer. So far, this one has rewarded old-fashioned values, though, like line and length for the bowlers and picking up singles for the batsmen.
Part of it is down to the conditions found in England during early June such as pitches not yet at peak hardness.Yet much of it is down, also, to the 50-over format and the fact that it is 150 per cent longer than a T20 match, extra time that is causing some teams and players untold problems as they sense peril just not there.
Take Pakistan in the their game against India at Edgbaston, a game of such massive billing and allure that the ICC reckoned they could have sold it five times over. Hype, though, can sometimes overcome the reality and Pakistan were never really in the contest, eventually losing by 124 runs.
Pakistan have endured much hardship not being able to play at home for the past nine years due to the threat of terrorism, but they have still played a decent international programme, so they have not been starved of cricket. Quite why they were outplayed so emphatically is not obvious except that they tend to save their worst for India in global tournaments (the score being 12-2 against Pakistan).
Especially notable in their latest defeat was the poor performance of Wahab Riaz, one of their most experienced bowlers and someone consistently around the 90mph mark.Wahab bowled what can only be described as a mixture of liquorice allsorts, though it wouldn’t be the first time bowlers have out-thought themselves in white-ball cricket.
Wahab’s thought process seems to have been to keep the batsman guessing, something popular in T20 cricket where gambling, in the sense of trying risky things with bat and ball, is endemic.
For instance, it is not unusual in that format for bowlers, with fine-leg up, to bowl a bouncer even though they have little protection. In 50-over cricket, you need to play the averages a bit more and bowl to your field, something Pakistan’s captain, Sarfraz Ahmed, found difficult to do for Wahab, who bowled short and wide, full and straight, and a few other variations that would have caused less sanguine captains to start invoking curses. Before he hobbled off mid-over with a sore ankle, Wahab had conceded 87 runs off 8.4 haphazard overs.
Compare that to the disciplined approach of India’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav who simply ran up and hit the deck hard on a good length in the channel around off-stump. Being a fast bowler,Yadav banged in the odd bouncer for variation, but otherwise it was his and Kumar’s unerring accuracy, bowling to their field, which set Pakistan’s batsmen on their heels.
It is that consistency that England could miss now that Chris Woakes has been ruled out for the remainder of the tournament with a side strain. In their opening game against Bangladesh, England’s other pace bowlers were a bit both sides of the wicket with their lines, though they were much better against New Zealand at Cardiff, a match they won by 87 runs. Now Eoin Morgan’s side are through to the semi-finals, maximising the protective measures offered by a well-set field will be vital for the bowlers. Not that Pakistan’s batsmen gave India’s bowlers much to think about at Edgbaston. The extra springy nature of modern bats might allow modern batsmen to target the boundary as a matter of course, but it has tended to come with soaking up dot balls until they get the right
In 50-over cricket, you need to play the averages a bit more and bowl to your field, something Pakistan found difficult to do for Wahab