No other game fixates very however much cricket over the surfaces on which it is played. Pitches are an enduring object of interest as well as the subject of contention. Take the primers for the Boundary Gavaskar Prize series, with the standard dance of precautionary doubt and preventiveness. A bullish Ravi Shastri called for pitches that abandoned the start, and Ian Healy hyped up Australia’s possibilities hence: “I suppose assuming they produce fair Indian wickets that are great batting wickets in the first place… we win. On the off chance that they’re unreasonable wickets …, I think India play those conditions better compared to us.”
Then the covers fell off in Nagpur and it was obvious that the pitch had been specifically watered, cut and rolled, and that this “differential readiness” – which left exposed patches outside the left-handers’ off stump on a spinner’s length at the two finishes – had apparently been custom-made to suit the host group, who had one leftie in the main seven to the guests’ four, and two remaining arm spinners to the guests’ none. Australia’s players kept an essential quiet, however was this driving home benefit excessively far?
The match arbitrator, Andy Pycroft, eventually concluded that the pitch was not deserving of authorization, yet inquiries around pitch arrangement were by the by again brought into sharp concentration. In the period of respective series, with World Test Title focuses on the line, will pitch-doctoring become an always more noteworthy enticement, as Rahul Dravid noticed as of late? Furthermore, more extensively, what is a “great” or “fair” pitch, and how could not entirely settled?
The ICC’s Pitch and Outfield Monitoring Process was introduced in 2006 and updated in January 2018 in an effort, they say, to reflect the variety of conditions worldwide and make member boards more accountable for the pitches they produce, as well as to introduce greater transparency in the rating of pitches.
One of six potential ratings applies to both pitch and outfield for each game: very good, good, average, below average, poor and unfit, with the bottom three incurring demerit points (1, 3 and 5 respectively for the pitch, 0, 2 and 5 for the outfield). Pick up five demerit points in a rolling five-year period and your ICC ground accreditation is suspended for 12 months. Pick up ten and it is two years without international cricket. Hugely consequential for the local association, perhaps less so for the national board. In situations where a pitch underperforms, match referees must consult umpires and captains before assigning a rating.
