Cummins exclaimed that no one would want to be a bowler in English conditions.
Pat Cummins has mocked the flat pitches during the ongoing Test series between England and India, where bowlers have little assistance. During the second game at Edgbaston, a record 1692 runs were scored across four innings, the most ever at this venue, which again underlined the changing dynamics of Test cricket in England.
During a press conference in the West Indies, Cummins revealed he followed the scores of the second Test, exclaiming that no one would want to be a bowler in English conditions. On comparing the Test matches between England and India and West Indies and Australia, the Aussie skipper felt both were different sports.
“I wasn’t (watching England vs India), probably Marnus (Labuschagne) was. We’ll keep an eye on it. Who’d want to be a bowler over there? Looking at the Test cricket this week over here, compared to that, looks like two different sports. It looks like it’s going to be a good series, 1-1. Didn’t watch a lot of it, but saw the scores.”
The conditions were indeed contrasting between the two Tests, as one was very high-scoring and the other saw bowlers dominating the proceedings. That England collapsed dramatically in the fourth innings doesn’t change the fact that the Edgbaston pitch was one of the flattest wickets in recent years.
When Brendon McCullum came as a head coach and Ben Stokes became the captain, the first thing they did was change the pitches to flat. They made them so batting-friendly that playing on the up became too easy, and shot-making was possible more than ever.
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Another change came in Dukes balls, which once moved throughout the contest and posed a massive threat, but that is no longer the case. The ball becomes soft too soon and loses its shape, which is obviously due to the excessive beating it takes on flat pitches with no movement, something even Indian captain Shubman Gill criticised.
That has resulted in high-scoring games, and help for seamers comes only when the ball is new. Since McCullum has taken over, the run rate (3.98) in England has been the highest among all countries, and the batting average has been a whopping 33.74.
Hence, no wonder that Cummins has been critical of the conditions in this part of the world, and such conditions have certainly taken away the real challenge of batting in England. It might work for England as of now, but the long-term consequences will be that none of their batters will be technically sound enough to succeed across conditions and will require similar surfaces everywhere to score.
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