Manchester: After the Youth Test between India U-19 and England U-19 ended at Kent County ground in Beckenham last week, the curator was asked if the Indian Test team requested any special kind of pitches for their practice session scheduled two days later. “It’s been a long summer and a lot of cricket has been played. Even if they ask for anything, I won’t be able to give them,” the curator said while dust came off as he was brushing the centre square.The locals here call it a beautiful summer. The past two gloomy and rainy days aside, the sun has been blazing down.The weather is not the only talking point this summer here. The high-scoring games and consistently flat nature of pitches are a departure from how cricket is usually played here. India pacer Akash Deep, on his first tour of England, imagined prodigious seam and swing. That bubble burst in the first India ‘A’ game he played before the Test series.Before the series started, England team’s managing director Rob Key pointed out that the increasing amount of cricket has played a part in the pitches getting flatter over the years. “There are a lot of tired squares. They’ve got more cricket than ever now that The Hundred and women’s cricket are in every county,” Key analysed.
As the series went on till the third Test at Lord’s, the pitches lost a fair amount of zip. At Edgbaston, England captain Ben Stokes even said that the conditions resembled the subcontinent. Former England captain Andrew Strauss, too, leaned on the narrative. “With cloud cover and a bit more moisture in the surfaces, you’re going to get a little bit more live grass. Therefore, it’s going to seam and swing a bit more. So, the weather’s played perfectly into India’s hands so far ,” Strauss told TOI during the Lord’s Test.A batting-dominated approach of the Bazball era may have had a role to play too. Another former England captain Michael Vaughan brought up this point during a chat with TOI. “For England to play this style of cricket (attacking batting), if you play on green tops, they are going to get bowled out quite quickly. I would think that England want to play on flatter wickets to play the expansive brand of cricket,” Vaughan reckoned.Former India wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta, who has been a broadcaster here, pointed out that the groundstaff struggle to maintain moisture after all the grounds were made sand-based to improve drainage. “A few of the ground staff told me that all the rainwater drains out so quickly that it dries up the surface quickly. In fact, the groundstaff in Birmingham had to recently put cardboard sheets besides the main square so that the main square remains moist longer,” Dasgupta told TOI .
