If Trent Bridge got a slap on the wrist for the turgid farce served up in the first test, Surrey CCC might expect the dreaded phone call in the next few days. The pitch wasn’t turgid; it was a minefield. Both are bad for cricket.
At times today, Chris Woakes moved the ball off the pitch more than Shane Warne did in 2005. It was hardly a fair contest.
India might wonder why the cricketing gods have forsaken them. Fans with tickets for day four wouldn’t have been too impressed either.
All cricket fans want is pitches that offer something for both bowlers and batsmen; featherbeds produce boring test cricket, but green tops and sticky wickets produce matches than pass in the blink of an eye.
I also despise matches when the toss is too crucial. England won a vital one on Friday, but this makes me worry we’ll lose all the important ones when it really matters: next summer.
Having said that, as we saw at Lord’s a seamer’s paradise doesn’t guarantee wickets. Bowlers still have to put the ball in the right place. England’s pace quartet did that with aplomb.
Predictably, the only batsman who made a score was Dhoni. He proved, yet again, that a cool head is often more useful than a watertight technique. MS counter-attacked at the right moments, rode his luck to a certain extent, and got India a score that keeps them in the game … for now.
When England’s innings started, batting still looked a hazardous exercise. Perhaps not to the same extent, but it was still rather tricky.
Consequently, it was remarkable that we survived until stumps unharmed. Robson actually looked reasonably composed in the circumstances. Well done to him.
His junior partner Alastair Cook (I’m kidding, but Robson has actually scored more runs than the skipper this summer) also looked safe enough, although he should have been given out LBW on a couple of occasions. It’s amazing how his luck has completely turned around. Long may it continue!
As for India, their bowlers deserved a wicket or two. But if you’re going to reject technology on an irrational basis and then stubbornly refuse to alter your position when improvements are made, few will have sympathy for you.
James Morgan
A cynic might be forgiven for thinking that the umpires are encouraging India to embrace DRS by giving their opponents every benefit of the doubt while offering them the exact opposite.
As the most powerful cricketing nation in the world, not many decisions are going India’s way at present. Something should be done!
Absolutely no sympathy for India on the DRS issue. Their position is idiotic. I don’t believe the reason they give. Namely “DRS is not perfect.” Well neither are umpires. They have had the worst of the decisions this series, and it should make them think.
Whatever happened to the old Oval pitch? It used to be the best wicket in England. Once again we see (except lords this summer ) when the ball starts moving around England with Anderson and Broad are a completely different team to what they are abroad on flat pitches.
I wonder how much money Lancashire made from their 3’day test match and it looks like Surrey could have a 3 day test match as well.
One final point for the benefit of Hamish ,who thinks I only write negative things about the media. I would jut like to congratulate BBC Test Match special, and Aggers for doing a lunch time feature on the up coming fixture list of 17 test matches in 9 months plus all the one day tournaments. Both he and Vaughn think resting players is a problem if you are going to keep prices so high. A good piece. More like this please.
;)
Have you ever umpired a cricket match Mark? I very much doubt it. DRS is based upon a false situation. A computer projection based upon a round ball bouncing on a flat surface. The only person who can tell you if the real, seamed ball, bouncing on an actual rough pitch in real time, is out LBW, is the umpire.
Claptrap!
You only have to see how many LBWs were wrongly given out when the umpires could not even see the ball pitch 6 inches to a foot outside leg stump.
There will always be marginal calls both with technology and human error, but DRS gets the vast majority right. In addition there can never be any accusation of bias when a machine is making the judgement. And anyone who believes the machine is a ‘homer,’ really does need some other people in white coats.
So umpires are dishonest homers. Thank you on behalf of all umpires. We have a shortage of good umpires. I wonder why?
Get a grip – that’s not what he said at all.
As for the quality of umpiring, I think DRS has shown quite how good umpires at the top level are, given how many decisions they get right.
Every umpire makes a bad decision because they’re human, DRS does a great job of eradicating those.
DRS is not just the predictive element of hawk-eye though, it’s used to identify contact with the bat for catches and LBWs, where the ball pitched, whether impact was in line, and finally the predictive element of hawk-eye.
The shape of the ball and the flatness of the surface are irrelevant as well, because the 6 or 7 cameras track the trajectory of the ball after it bounces, so any deviation has already happened.
The umpire’s call takes care of the marginal decisions to allow for any fallibility of the system.
There was a laughable incident during the last tour of India where the third umpire spent about 3 minutes adjudicating on whether a fielder had touched the boundary and whether it was 3 runs or 4; an over later the batsman was given out lbw when replays showed he had clearly got an edge, yet nobody could do anything.
I’ve umpired a lot of cricket matches, and unless it’s on the back foot half way up the shins in front of middle, you always question yourself.
Nice to be in agreement with you Mark.
Cheers Hamish. I agree with you. It is ludicrous when they spend ages trying to work out if it’s 4 or 3 yet then give a batsman out when you can see he had a blatant inside edge or the ball pitched outside off stump.
I don’t understand the hostility to hi tech. In the 19th century when there were no cameras, hi tech was sticking a bloke with a white coat behind the wicket as near as possible to the action. You can do that with a camera now. The notion that it has to be 100% perfect is silly.
Personally I think the real reason Indian players (particularly the great players who have just retired) did not want it was because they were going to given out LBW more often, especially against spinners.
Peter, 99% of DRS calls are based on the movement of the ball *after* it has bounced. So the movement off the surface isn’t being predicted, as it actually happened. So it’s a bit of a strawman argument.
I question the system and the method of gathering and interpreting the information. I do not accept without question Hawkeye propaganda. Their primary motive is to sell their equipment and services. http://theconversation.com/a-hawk-eye-for-detail-how-accurate-is-electronic-judging-in-sport-8136 60% accuracy is not good enough.
Don’t get me wrong James, it was a good toss to win and both sides clearly found batting tricky but was it really a MINEFIELD?? Was surprised to hear Boycott say that too! I’m far from being an expert on the nature of cricket pitches but it just seemed to me (as a layman!) that the majority of the Indian batsmen got themselves out, not due to unplayable jaffas but through bad shots (Kumar), half-shots (Pujara/Rahane) and no-shots (Ghambir/Kohli). The first day pitches/conditions at Lords & Old Trafford seemed much more excusable for a low team total. I just wonder if we are blaming the playing surface when actually the culpability lies with an Indian side technically inept against the moving ball and, apart from their skipper, mentally lacking in resolve? Although there were several chances and close calls, the last 120+ runs of the day actually went for just 1 wicket, and even that was due to Dhoni’s poorly-aimed pull… another batsman error, albeit at the end of a very decent knock.
Agree the pitch wasn’t that bad, more India’s lack of application. Dhoni’s innings was brilliant and shamed his colleagues, though he got lucky when he nicked one and none of the England players heard it. We should have bowled them out for under 100 – thought Cook left Jordan and Woakes on too long rather than bringing Jimmy back to finish the job – but we batted well in the evening and conditions should be easier for batting tomorrow.
As for DRS, how many dodgy umpiring calls are going to go against India before they change their mind? Not as many as it’ll take to convince Maxie to change his :-)
Oh dear! I harken back to a previous comment on another thread about the odious Clarke getting into bed with his new best mate Srinivisaran, and the fact that the “big three” have five test series against each other? This series has absolutely pissed on the chips of any English cricket fan that likes a good contest, because “contest” this aint!!
Bangladesh would’ve put up a better fight….Sri Lanka would’ve give us a better fight (perhaps defeated us?) but the average cricket fan would have got their money’s worth…for me this is just a huge commercial piss take, and done bugger all to promote Test Cricket in India…I’m fed up and rest my case…all will be revealed in the fullness of time no doubt?
This was so poor that I actually turned it off and closed the OBO. I can’t remember the last time I did that.
England bowled out for 486 as I write. Bloody good effort on a minefield, I’d say.