T Becca: All smiles at Sabina Park (22 Sep 1998)

22 September 1998

From the boundary: All smiles at Sabina Park

Tony Becca

After months of absence, cricket returned to Sabina Park on Saturday, and for the first time in many years, certainly since the abandoned Test between the West Indies and England on January 29, there were smiles all around.

The smiles were not because of the batting - which was generally disappointing, the bowling or the fielding. Board members, ex-players, and the fans were all smiles because of how the pitch looked and how it played.

The Test match was abandoned after 56 minutes with England on 17 for three off 10.1 overs because of what was officially described as a dangerous pitch which was newly relaid. It was dug up and redone, and Saturday's match, organised by the Jamaica Cricket Board of Control and the Kingston Cricket Club, was the first opportunity to assess it.

On Saturday, the pitch appeared a bit slow, and the slow bowlers hardly got the ball to spin.

Apart from the fact that sometimes a pitch looks nice and friendly because of the lack of quality of the bowlers in action, and that the real test will be when top class bowlers are on the hunt, a new pitch cannot be truly assessed for things like pace, bounce and turn until it has properly settled and has been used for a period of time.

The Sabina Park pitch is no different, and only time will tell what its true nature will be and how it will stand up to four and five-day matches.

There is, however, one good reason for the early smiles.

The reason is not only because of the reading that it will be a good cricket pitch - a pitch of consistent bounce, with enough pace to satisfy strokeplayers, enough bounce to motivate fast bowlers, and enough turn for those who can spin the ball, but also, and more so, because of the surface.

Unlike recent years when there was always something wrong with it after it was prepared for the new season, years when, because of the uneven surface, the bounce was unpredictable, awkward, and, depending on who were bowling, sometimes dangerous, the surface of the new Sabina Park pitch is smooth.

Apart from the fact that the cracks present were normal and unlike the ugly ones of last January, and that the pitch, unlike the elevation of recent years, is almost level with the rest of the field, that was obviously the reason why chief groundsman Charles Joseph looked so happy all day Saturday.

A one-day game may not be long enough to assess a pitch which will be used for four-day first class and five-day Test matches. As far as Sabina Park is concerned, however, the uneven surface was the cause of last January's embarrassment, and the surface was what the fans were interested in on Saturday.

They wanted to see if, for the first time in a long while, the surface was smooth, if the bounce of the ball was consistent, and they were satisfied with what they saw

Source :: The Jamaica Gleaner (https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/)