The Definition of a Good Pitch

I just read quite a good article on Cricinfo outlining aspects of cricket that we lost through the 2000’s.

It comes to a section entitled “The definition of a good pitch”.

Give them a road, and they all – without giving it a second thought – call it a “good wicket”. Give the bowler some uneven bounce or some seam movement and there are calls for the venue to be banned. “Last time we came here, the bowlers got false confidence and the batters were looking for technical problems that didn’t exist,” Sachin Tendulkar said during the ODI leg of India’s tour of New Zealand earlier this year. Fair enough about the previous tour, but what did we have this time around? Flat tracks, small fields where edges and dabs went for sixes and fours, and consequently, big totals. Entertainment for everybody. Didn’t the statistics give some of the batsmen false confidence this time around? Isn’t all this boundary-hitting a bit nauseating? Shouldn’t administrators give the spectators more credit? A 414 v 411 ODI is one played on a “good pitch”. We have forgotten the language of cricket.

This is 100% spot on. When someone describes a pitch as a “cracker”, it doesn’t actually mean a good pitch. It means a pitch that will produce a billion runs.

You may have noticed that lately I have had a go at pitches (Indian ones in particular) that are simply roads and pretty much hand you runs on a platter. These pitches are described as good, but really they are boring and one dimensional. I would describe them as “bad”.

A good pitch is a pitch that rewards both good bowling and good batting and gives equal chances to both. Too many pitches these days make batting too easy.