Is the ACB shooting itself in the foot

[Black Thunder]

by this i mean the nature of FC pitches this season has just seen runs, runs and more runs.

the proof in the pudding is that at this point in season 15 batsmen have averaged over 50 whilst playing 5 or more games. Compare this to last season where only 4 players averaged over 50 whilst playing 5 or more games.

In 01/02 there was 8, in 00/01 there was 10, in 99/00 there was 7, and in 98/99 there was 10.

So this year our batsmen have clearly been batting on pitches which are far better than they ever have.

This is also proven by the fact there have been so many draws and so many matches decided by "target setting" (See other thread).

Now this has two effects;

1 - it gives FC batsmen the idea that everywhere they go in the world, they are going to be batting on absolute roads where they can get away with minimal footwork because the bounce is going to be so consistent.

and

2 - young guys coming through the grades are often multi talented. As if they decided to drop their bowling, they could bat just as well and a few (although not as many) do the opposite. There are plenty of guys going around that have done this over the years - Daniel Marsh, Shane Watson currently are the two best examples. But talented kids coming through now are going to want to do nothing but bat - why would you wanna be a bowler these days. And i reckon that is going to reduce the number of talented bowlers coming through.

I don't know the reason why the FC wickets have been so good. I guess it has kinda filtered through from test cricket, where it's plainly obvious the ACB just wants a test to last five days as its more profitable than a three day test.

that is all well and good but theres no profit from the sheffield shield competition.

Basically, it just seems that batting has been far to easy and if this becomes a constant thing for the SS competition than it may jepordize out future as being the strongest cricketing nation in the world.

Test and FC cricket has always been won by having dominant bowlers, and at the moment i'd suggest most of our talented cricketers would much rather be batsmen.......

[Darky]

Depends.. who is it that decides what kind of pitches are created for different games?

Do they go with with freeways that give the crowd value for money, or do they go with pitches that play true early and take spin late to make games go for 4-5 days?

Is achieveing a result important all the time, or are pitches designed so the home team doesn't lose?

Be it by design or by chance, the batsmen have had the best of the pitches this season. In a season when proven quality bowlers have been at short supply (spinners especially), it's worked against sussing out future team selections. Not that that's necessarily what pitches are designed for, it just hasn't worked on every front.

[Freo Big Fella]

Originally posted by Darky
Depends.. who is it that decides what kind of pitches are created for different games?

Do they go with with freeways that give the crowd value for money, or do they go with pitches that play true early and take spin late to make games go for 4-5 days?

Is achieveing a result important all the time, or are pitches designed so the home team doesn't lose?

Be it by design or by chance, the batsmen have had the best of the pitches this season. In a season when proven quality bowlers have been at short supply (spinners especially), it's worked against sussing out future team selections. Not that that's necessarily what pitches are designed for, it just hasn't worked on every front.


I tend to think that the groundstaff prepare the pitches the way that we expect to see them prepared. So if we run on a scale from
one to six(one favouring the bowlers, six favouring the batsmen) we get this.

1. The WACA
2. Gabba
3. MCG
4. SCG
5. Bellreive
6. Adelaide

So Richard Winter is more likely to produce hard, bouncy pitches that we expect in Perth, whilst Les Burdett is going to prepare pitches that lean towards the batsmen.

[Black Thunder]

don't know if it is by design or chance, but i'd suggest more the former than latter.

or it could just be a lack of quality bowlers, but i can't see us going from a season where 4 guys had an average of 50 (which i must say is too low), to seeing 15 guys having an average of 50.

I think the pressure has come from the ACB to produce belters for the internationals as this appeals to the lowest common dominator. It gets crowds in.

And i kinda think that maybe the curators are of the opinion that the boys at the top want this happening right through - even in Sydney Grade cricket, i notice the scoring has been VERY high (last year it was incredibly high - 7 or 8 guys scored 1000 runs in the season. No one season had ever had more than 4 (i think) before that season).

so i dunno......i just think its discouraging young kids from wanting to bowl as these days it is VERY hard yakka.

[Black Thunder]

just another thing to look at which i inadvertadly looked up was the top 20 scores of the past 20 years for Australia - 5 of them from the 80's, 7 of them from the 90's and 8 of them from the 00's.

So in four years of the 00's there have been 8 double centuries (2 a year). In 10 years of the 90's there were only 5 double centuries (1 every 2 years).........

1 ML Hayden (AUS) 380 (AUS v ZIM, Perth, 1st Test, 2003)
2 MA Taylor (AUS) 334* (PAK v AUS, Peshawar (Arbab Niaz), 2nd Test, 1998)
3 RT Ponting (AUS) 257 (AUS v IND, Melbourne (MCG), 3rd Test, 2003)
4 JL Langer (AUS) 250 (AUS v ENG, Melbourne (MCG), 4th Test Match, 2002)
5 RT Ponting (AUS) 242 (AUS v IND, Adelaide, 2nd Test, 2003)
6 JL Langer (AUS) 223 (AUS v IND, Sydney, 3rd Test, 2000)
7 MA Taylor (AUS) 219 (ENG v AUS, Trent Bridge, 5th Test, 1989)
7= MJ Slater (AUS) 219 (AUS v SRI, Perth, 1st Test, 1995)
9 DM Jones (AUS) 216 (AUS v WI, Adelaide, 5th Test, 1989)
10 GS Blewett (AUS) 214 (SA v AUS, Johannesburg (Wanderers), 1st Test, 1997)
11 DM Jones (AUS) 210 (IND v AUS, Chennai (Madras-Chepauk), 1st Test, 1986)
12 RT Ponting (AUS) 206 (WI v AUS, Port-of-Spain (Trinidad), 2nd Test Match, 2003)
13 AR Border (AUS) 205 (AUS v NZ, Adelaide, 2nd Test, 1987)
14 AC Gilchrist (AUS) 204* (SA v AUS, Johannesburg (Wanderers), 1st Test Match, 2002)
15 ML Hayden (AUS) 203 (IND v AUS, Chennai (Madras-Chepauk), 3rd Test, 2001)
16 AR Border (AUS) 200* (ENG v AUS, Headingley, 4th Test, 1993)
17 DC Boon (AUS) 200 (AUS v NZ, Perth, 1st Test, 1989)
17= SR Waugh (AUS) 200 (WI v AUS, Kingston (Jamaica), 4th Test, 1995)
19 MTG Elliott (AUS) 199 (ENG v AUS, Headingley, 4th Test, 1997)
19= SR Waugh (AUS) 199 (WI v AUS, Bridgetown (Barbados), 3rd Test, 1999)

[Dry Rot]

Not taking anything away from the deeds of the Indians, but the Test wickets this season looked pretty ordinary.

Ditto FC wickets given the scores.

Isn't the MCG pitch a drop-in one these days? And the SCG doesn't seem to play many tricks these days.

Bring back uncovered pitches!

[Black Thunder]

yes i'm bored, and i'm now harping on.

but in the SS this year there has been 27517 runs (pretty sure i wouldn't have been to far off if i was) for the loss of 749 wickets (same here) at an averaged of 36.74 which IMO is far too biased towards the batsmen.