Kartikeya Date looks at the conventional wisdom about pitches favouring fast bowlers and spinners
The pitch at Headingley for the 3rd Ashes Test which began yesterday has offered more pace and bounce than the pitches at Lord’s and Edgbaston. It will be no surprise that the response of the commentariat has been overwhelmingly positive.
Without belaboring the point, the conventional wisdom in cricket is far more likely to consider a turning pitch to be substantard than it is to consider a fast bowler’s pitch to be substandard. This is because of another bit of conventional wisdom.* You will have heard it often - a good pitch helps the fast bowlers early in the match, the batters in the middle of the match, and spinners late in the match. This pitch is a myth. Most pitches don’t age that much over five days. They either start out helping the batting side and turn later in the match, or, they start out helping seam bowling and help the spinners.
An extended discussion of this idea is for a longer article. But for now, consider two cases - England bowling in Tests in England, and India bowling in Tests in India. The first chart below shows the share of spin bowling in the total deliveries bowled in Tests for England in England. The second shows the share of seam/fast (basically, seam-up bowling, as opposed to bowlers who spin the ball) bowling in the total deliveries bowled in Tests for India in India.
The records are shown as a rolling share over 25 consecutive Tests. So, the location of the right-most point in the chart refers to the share of spin by England in England in their 25 most recent home Tests, and so on.
Visiting batters in India (March 2017 to March 2023, 25 Tests) face an Indian seamer in 6/20 balls (~33%). Visiting batters in England (September 2019 to July 2023, 25 Tests) face an English spinner 4/20 balls (~20%).
The received wisdom is that the conditions have been doctored in India in recent years. The evidence suggests otherwise. The evidence also suggests that there’s nothing ‘natural’ about the current state of things in England. It is as manufactured or cultivated as the spinning pitches in India. Further, the record suggests that this ‘doctoring’ (such as it is) occurs to a greater extent in England in the current century than it does in India.
* The ICC’s official pitch evaluation system does not do this. This system is averse to both excessive deviation off the pitch (whether it is seam or turn) and minimal deviation off the pitch. But it is designed to accomodate seam or turn to a far greater extent than it accomodate’s uneven bounce. It is an excellent system which does not privilege the fast bowler’s pitch over the spinner’s pitch.