Left field

Flat pitches a further concern for cricket

Tom Pilcher

Mar 4, 2009 22:24 UTC

To those uninitiated with cricket, to hear complaints about a playing surface being ‘flat’ would only further confuse them. As if the game, also hit by tragedy this week, wasn’t complex enough.

Now, a recent trend of high scores has led to criticism from some of the game’s former players, who are equally baffled by pitches that serve up nothing more than run feasts.

A list of highest test innings above 600 includes five totals all scored in the last couple of weeks, and two of those make the top 10.

This is not to say that all is bad in world cricket.

A glance at the recent first test match between South Africa and Australia shows how cricket ought to be.

Political correctness gone too far in Springbok v Maori saga

South Africa has always been a country of great contrasts and irony but there is something bizarre about the current furore over a proposed visit by the New Zealand Maoris.

Reports say South Africa are considering turning down a request for the Maori to play the Springboks on the grounds that the Boks do not play teams selected on racial grounds.

This glorious, unpredictable northern festival

You wouldn’t have got great odds on Wales and France coming out on top against England and Scotland respectively on the first day of the second weekend of the Six Nations.

But England beating Wales in the try count at the Millennium Stadium and Scotland taking the game to the French the way they did in St Denis were not forecasts I’d read anywhere.