How Australia has got rough end of the schedule at World T20
Gaurav Joshi is sceptical about pitch preparation
Australia may have got the rough end of the schedule during the ICC World T20 due to the fact that that all of their matches were played on pitches which were prepared for matches involving India that followed a day after the Australian games.
The original schedule had Australia playing New Zealand in Dharamsala the day before the match the Indians played. While the India-Pakistan match was moved due to security concerns it was worth noting that the Dharamsala pitch was a lot drier than most had anticipated.
Traditionally the Dharamsala pitch has been known to have decent pace and carry during the IPL but with India initially scheduled to play there the nature of the pitch had taken a completely different look. Local groundsman had stated “it was due to inclement weather” that had caused the pitch to be slow and low.
Australian coach Darren Lehmann said after the match, “yes, generally it has bit more carry” during the IPL. While this cannot be confirmed it is widely speculated that the pitch was left in such dry nature so Indian spinners could exploit the conditions. The game was moved but Australia still had to play on a slow low track a day previously.
Next Australia played against Bangladesh two days before India’s clash against Bangladesh. Going by history the Bangalore pitch is generally one of the flattest in the India. The par score for IPL in the past few seasons is over 175 and the ball comes on to the bat nicely.
But with India scheduled to play Bangladesh two days after Australia, once again the Bangalore surface did not seem to have the usual pace and carry. In fact as the match went on the pitch started to take turn, something that is very uncharacteristic of the Bangalore pitch. While Australia managed to scramble a win, two days later the pitch took big turn for India’s match against Bangladesh.
Australia’s final two matches will be played in Mohali. The first against Pakistan might be on a new surface as the match against India will have women match preceding the men’s match. So this basically means that when the first ball is bowled, the pitch will already be 40 overs old.
In the past two World T20s in Bangladesh and in Sri Lanka this has been quite a common trend because only a couple of cities have hosted both the women’s and men’s matches. But at this World T20 due to many venues, the women’s and men’s matches have not been played back to back.
Come the last game, Australia will play on what can be termed as ”˜used’ pitch. While the nature of the pitch should not change dramatically during a course of a T20 match, the dry nature of the square even for the last match means Australia once again will have to confront a pitch that will aid big turn.
At the end of the day, it is about planning and executing like New Zealand has done this tournament but sometimes a slight bit of assistance in foreign conditions does help. Australia in a way have perhaps been on the wrong end of the stick.
Short URL: https://indiandownunder.com.au/?p=6600