Make the ball move

After watching a low-scoring thriller between Pakistan and Australia at Headingley, Jarrod Kimber pleads for Test pitches with more help for bowlers. On Cricdude, he contrasts the Headlingley Test with the one going on at the SSC, where only eight wickets fell in 267 overs, and says the Sri Lanka match is a poor one even if there is a result because the first three days were about "pointless stat collecting by batsmen".

Runs on pitches like this SSC one mean very little. The bowlers are not in the game; they are hardly required at all. New ball bowlers come on and get smashed, spin bowlers come on and do everything they cannot to be smashed. Wickets come from luck and lapses in concentration. It isn’t a fair fight. And it makes the tests bloody dull.