Pitch it right

Australia's tracks will offer plenty of pace and bounce, but the Indian seamers would do well to stick to the essential disciplines of line and length, writes Frank Tyson, in the December issue of Wisden Asia Cricket.

"That ball of mud is a lump of the Sydney wicket I brought back with me from the Bodyline tour."

I was in the Warrington lounge of Bessie Duckworth and her husband, George, England's wicketkeeper during that 1932-33 tour of Australia, and we were eyeing an object that resembled a small, black, round lawn bowl reposing on the mantelpiece. It looked as if it could have substituted for a cannonball shot from one of Admiral Lord Nelson's 10-pounders at Trafalgar: unevenly round and hard as iron, it shone and was striated as though imperfectly fired in a Potteries kiln. When I hefted it, I discovered that it weighed enough to suggest that if it had fallen from its perch it would have holed the Duckies' floor!

Having returned the previous month from the victorious 1954-55 MCC tour of Australia, I could vouch that this black rock was, and always had been, the improbable raw material from which Aussie cricket pitches had been fashioned since the earliest days of the game in the colonies.

Originally it was mined from Bulli in the hills south of Sydney - from the banks of the Merri Creek, a tributary of the River Yarra, flowing through the Melbourne suburb of Northcote - and from Athelstone in suburban Adelaide. Now the rare earth it is dug out from wherever it is to be found.

Bulli, Merri Creek and Athelstone clay pitches are concrete-hard and, without a cushioning underlay of couch grass roots, brittle. They provide every type of bowler with exceptional bounce and extra pace off the wicket. Batsmen accustomed to the slower surfaces and lower angles of English and Indian turf quickly appreciate that, in the antipodes, if they do not get right to the pitch of the ball, it hits the bat higher up the blade. Consequently, edged strokes, which on deader wickets fall short of the slips, in Australia carry as catches to the close-in fieldsmen. Batting on such hard wickets, however, does have an advantage in that the ball comes on to the bat, making the art of batting more a question of stroking the ball rather than of punching out bottom-handed shots. Moreover, playing through the line of the ball, which rarely deviates as an innings develops, seldom poses the hit-and-miss problems created on pitches that offer sideways movement.

However, experience has shown that, as a game progresses, Aussie clay surfaces, if they are not held together by couch-grass root growth, tend to crack; fissures open up on the Melbourne and Perth pitches which can cause the deliveries that hit their edges to shoot, kick or deviate a long way laterally. A broken fourth-day Aussie pitch can make batting a lottery of variable bounce and last-millisecond reflex adjustments to intended strokes.

It is apparent that the lasting quality of an Australian pitch has its roots in its foundations. Once upon a time it was horrendously difficult to cultivate such a cohesive underlay in southern Australia, where soil temperatures do not reach the optimum level for root growth until the cricket season is well advanced. Nowadays modern science has overcome the problems set by nature. Curators manufacture excellent Test wickets, either with the warming assistance of underground 'electric blankets', or by cultivating them in huge trays under ideal greenhouse conditions. They then transport them, sometimes over long distances, to match venues and 'drop' them in to centre wicket areas.

When I returned from my first tour of Australia, I was bombarded with the query as to whether the hardness, bounce and pace of Aussie pitches made the fast bowler's lot down under a happier one. The obvious answer was a straightforward 'yes.' But if this year's visiting quickies to Australia - India's Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, and Zimbabwe's Heath Streak and Andy Blignaut - expect to advance their international careers, they must recognise that the encouraging bounce and pace of the Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth tracks are fraught with a danger: that of exciting the bowler into ignoring the discipline of precise length and direction.

One of the many advantages of having an experienced bowler like Javagal Srinath in a touring team is his ability to educate his younger colleagues and steer them clear of the pitfalls that await them. Only too often, speedsters new to Australian conditions fall hook, line and sinker for the exhilarating spectacle of illusionary pace when they see the ball bounce. Srinath could tell the fast-bowling tyros in the Indian team that the secret of wicket-taking in Australia is to pitch the ball sufficiently far up to gain maximum swing and cut, yet just short enough to force the batsman onto the back foot. He could also warn his juniors that very short balls minimise lateral movement through the air; and that iron-hard pitches deny the bowler cut off the wicket, thus permitting the batsman to hit the ball on the up and through its line - with little or no risk.

Fast-bowling success in Australia comes to bowlers who give 110 per cent effort, produce maximum velocity in short bursts of half-a-dozen aggressive overs, and bowl accurately, persistently and with discipline. Such bowlers must be able to bowl six balls out of six at maximum pace, on a length short enough to prevent the batsman playing forward, yet full enough to gain late movement through the air and off the wicket, and by swing, curve, angle or cut find the edge of the bat. A possible wicket bonus comes to the man who is able to take the pace off the ball and induce the batsman to play early lofted strokes.

Above all, the speedster must embody the discipline which I admired in bowlers like Brian Statham, Michael Holding, Richard Hadlee and Dennis Lillee: the ability to direct an unrelenting attack along what Geoffrey Boycott called the 'corridor of uncertainty' around the off stump, and produce chances for a tactically placed slip field. If Statham misdirected one ball in his opening over, his keeper Godfrey Evans used to say that he was having an off day!

Australian conditions are unforgiving. When bowlers relax their observance of bowling basics, climate and wickets can conspire to destroy a team's hope of victory. They can reproduce the disaster encountered by India in the initial overs of the recent World Cup final in South Africa. Four undisciplined overs from Zaheer and Srinath at the outset of the Australian innings and the match was as good as over, as Waugh's men transformed their early mastery of Ganguly's pacemen, into complete 'mental disintegration'.

One cannot generalise about Australian pitches. It is an absolute batting delight, for instance, to play at the Adelaide Oval; not just because of the beauty of the nearby Lofty Ranges but also because of the nature of the Test strip. It is an absolute five-day belter: true of bounce, easy-paced, and with the added bonus for batsmen of short square-leg and point boundaries. Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, however, might find the pitch much to their liking, since it does assist the spinner on the fourth and fifth days of a Test. The same can be said of the Sydney Cricket Ground strip; initially a blameless wicket, it can provide complications of acute turn as a match progresses. Such complications however, are meat and drink to batsmen such as Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman, educated as they are on Indian turners; moreover Harbhajan and Kumble can turn these conditions to India's advantage.

This year the Melbourne Cricket Club celebrates 150 years of its modern Test Ground, established on the former Richmond Police Paddock. The MCG has changed greatly in the course of the last century-and-a-half, and this year its transformation into a modern sporting arena will be complete with the replacement of the Members' Pavilion, which was erected in the first decade of the 20th century. Over the years the Melbourne pitch has usually provided a reliable Test surface and this tour should be no exception. The outfield has been completely re-drained and modern technology will guarantee a true Boxing-Day pitch, inspite of the roughing up of the square by the Aussie Rules football final in late September. The only threat to a five-day Test lies in the tendency of the Melbourne wicket to keep low as the game progresses.

The most exacting test of Indian batsmanship will be provided at Brisbane's Gabba, the best cricket pitch in Australia and one that provides an even contest between bat and ball. The spring and early summer rains of a normal Queensland December usually ensure that Brisbane's first Test of the season begins on a pitch that has some encouragement for the quicker bowlers. If the side batting first survive the first two sessions and the weather remains dry, they are then vouchsafed a subsequent two days of even bounce, stroke-assisting pace and the opportunity of accumulating a match-winning total. This southern winter, Australia has been in the grip of the worst drought in living memory: a climatic phenomenon which could cause a similar metaphorical scarcity of wickets.

Good, hard pitches; minimum movement in the air and off the pitch; zero tolerance of an undisciplined line and length; and persistence: the categorical imperative of mental toughness. The bowler who takes on board these factors will succeed in Australia in the next few months. For he will have absorbed the lesson spelt out by the West Indian author CLR James when he wrote: "the greatness of a bowler is in his head."