India v Pakistan 2006 - Cricket Series

Now of course you will have been watching the latest cricket series being played in Pakistan (or blayed in Bakistaan if you are a Palestinian). If you don't support cricket or haven't a clue about what I am saying, then you will probably find this post quite tedious and you may consider leaving.

I'm waiting....

OK so now that the riff-raff has left I will continue.

The Lahore test that started on Friday the 13th of January was destined to end in a draw. How did I know that? Well, the pitch for a start. No pitch can be prepared to deliver bounce, swing or even deviation when there has been a cumulative total of 2 hours sunlight for the duration of the preparation. No matter what rollers they use, or what techniques they wish to employ, nothing can dry out the pitch sufficiently after sprinkling to give the bowlers the bounce they require. The result is the dull flat wicket that has been the scourge of every bowler who has had the misfortune to ruin his stats upon it.

Have a look at this graph. Now it is obvious that a water soaked pitch which has had no sunlight to slowly dry it will have non-optimum bounce and will also be of lower density due to the lower compaction. There are many other factors but I will leave them out here.

So bloody dry out the pitch sufficiently next time! Nuff said.

This study was published a while ago and the research was carried out in South Africa, for those who are interested. They wanted to bring the countries provincial pitches into line with International standards thereby improving the performance of their domestic cricketers. What an idea - maybe the BCCI (if you don't know what this means then you really shouldn't be reading this blog) could do something similar. But probably not, as their main concern is making money and selecting players who just the previous week they had excluded from the team.

Just for laughs, it seems that the ex-captain in question - you know who I mean - may not even get to bat as our boys (Sehwag and Dravid) are on 403/0 and they only need another 11 runs to scurry past Mankad et al's (circa 1955/56) highest-opening-partnership record, which currently stands at 413 runs. Shoaib Akhtar was blunted; Mohammad Sami, spanked; Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, dismissed; Danish Kaneria, destroyed; and the rest scattered. Way hey!
If this continues the statisticians are going to have a hard time keeping up with the run flood and record tumble on a roti-flat pitch. Bowlers will be looking to Faisalabad for some respite to their abysmal figures.

On that sweet note - bye.