The pitch at the Brian Lara Stadium which was used for the first semi-final of the 2024 T20 World Cup between South Africa and Afghanistan continues to draw sharp reaction with Andy Flower calling it ‘dangerous’.
Afghanistan’s fairytale run at the world cup came to a crushing end after they were shot out for 56 in 11.5 overs on a pitch which offered variable bounce and exaggerated seam movement to the bowlers making life difficult for the batters.
Also Read: Trott Lambasts Semi-final Pitch After Afghanistan’s Exit
Flower observed how few balls lifted off a length to shoulder height and surprised batters. He was relieved nobody got hurt.
“You can’t blame Afghanistan for doing what they did at the toss. They had such an excellent record batting first and then defending with a very good varied attack of their own,” Flower told ESPNCricinfo.
“But batting first was a really tough ask. You didn’t know what a good score would be and they were just blown away. A couple of balls flew off a length around, sort of shoulder, neck, chin height off the South African quicks and one of them flew over Quinton de Kock — the ‘keeper’s head and gloves for four byes. I was pleased that no one got hurt,” he added.
Flower added that the cracks on the pitches were visible and they caused ‘wild variance’ in bounce.
“You saw some interesting visual shots from above the square and a couple of the commentators referenced this being a brand new pitch. Perhaps, they could have used a pitch that had been used previously,” he said.
“Those shots showed that crazy paving-type effect and that those blocks and the cracks produced this wild variance in bounce. As a batter, you’re trying to predict where the ball is going to be. You want to meet it somewhere near the middle of the bat, at least. (But) on this pitch, it was almost impossible to do that on any consistent basis at all. I thought it was actually a little bit dangerous,” he added.
Former Australia fast bowler Tom Moody said there should be a fair contest between the bat and the ball.
“I don’t think you’d want to see it in any game, to be honest with you. You want a fair contest between bat and ball and I’m not advocating that we need to have surfaces that you need 200 plus runs,” Moody said.
“But you need consistent bounce — that is the most important thing — (and) any batter would hold their hands up and say, that is the most important thing. If you’ve got one ball that’s hitting the toe of your bat or one that you feel like you’re going to punch with your gloves at the same length, that is a very difficult challenge to combat,” he added.
He pointed out the presence of grass around crack contributing to the inconsitent bounce.
“You see, this sort of crazy paving, if I could put it that way, where a lot of dense grass was gathered around those cracks — you could just tell that was the thing that promoted the inconsistency of bounce. It’ll be something that they’ll reflect on, if not reflecting on already and thinking, well, we’ve got this wrong,” Moody said.
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