The Official IPL Thread
I'll have a go before Etienne/E10/The Purple Cow explain it better.
Bowler friendly is usually referring to fast-medium bowlers. They can be helped by swing through the air, movement off the pitch (when the ball hits the seam and deviates) and irregular bounce from the start. Early season English pitches are the locus classicus for these. The damper climate in England than elsewhere contributes to this, but the pitch won't actually be wet because it gets covered up.
The ultimate bowler friendly wicket i sprobably a drying pitch rather than a wet one. These used to be known as sticky dogs, and here is the card from the most famous:
http://uk.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1950S/1950-51/ENG_IN_AUS/ENG_AUS_T1_01-05DEC1950.html
Between the Aus first innings and England's first innings, it rained heavily. In those days, you were not allowed to cover the pitch during the 5 days of the match. So when England started their innings conditions had got virtually unplayable. Both England and Aus realised the conditions were unusually difficult (and likely to improve) and declared their innings to get more time bowling at the other side. You don't get such pitches now really.
Batsman friendly basically means the absence of swing/seam/irregular bounce. Balls often swing/seam for the first hour then stop moving as the ball gets older. This would still count as batsman friendly. Similarly a pitch with irregular bounce only on the last day would be called batsman friendly.
Fast pitches are in a bit of a different category. They help really fast bowlers (Dale Steyn is probably the only one of these around at the moment) but because the bounce is true and straight fast-medium bowlers can be played fairly easily by a good batsman.
Pitches that take spin are also a bit different. Most will spin on the last day, but occasionally (Sydney used to be the one) they help spinners from the very start. You probably wouldn't talk of spin pitches in terms of batsman/bowler friendly.
Clear as mud?
I'll have a go before Etienne/E10/The Purple Cow explain it better.
Bowler friendly is usually referring to fast-medium bowlers. They can be helped by swing through the air, movement off the pitch (when the ball hits the seam and deviates) and irregular bounce from the start. Early season English pitches are the locus classicus for these. The damper climate in England than elsewhere contributes to this, but the pitch won't actually be wet because it gets covered up.
The ultimate bowler friendly wicket i sprobably a drying pitch rather than a wet one. These used to be known as sticky dogs, and here is the card from the most famous:
http://uk.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1950S/1950-51/ENG_IN_AUS/ENG_AUS_T1_01-05DEC1950.html
Between the Aus first innings and England's first innings, it rained heavily. In those days, you were not allowed to cover the pitch during the 5 days of the match. So when England started their innings conditions had got virtually unplayable. Both England and Aus realised the conditions were unusually difficult (and likely to improve) and declared their innings to get more time bowling at the other side. You don't get such pitches now really.
Batsman friendly basically means the absence of swing/seam/irregular bounce. Balls often swing/seam for the first hour then stop moving as the ball gets older. This would still count as batsman friendly. Similarly a pitch with irregular bounce only on the last day would be called batsman friendly.
Fast pitches are in a bit of a different category. They help really fast bowlers (Dale Steyn is probably the only one of these around at the moment) but because the bounce is true and straight fast-medium bowlers can be played fairly easily by a good batsman.
Pitches that take spin are also a bit different. Most will spin on the last day, but occasionally (Sydney used to be the one) they help spinners from the very start. You probably wouldn't talk of spin pitches in terms of batsman/bowler friendly.
Clear as mud?
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