Credit where it’s dew: Variety of pitches has brought World Cup alive

On the television coverage of the Cricket World Cup semi-final between Australia and South Africa in Kolkata on Thursday night, the director had a penchant for aerial shots of the broad, brown Hooghly River, winding its way under the Hooghly Bridge a few hundred paces from the long-on boundary, on its journey to the Bay of Bengal.

The sediment-infused stream may well have been the perfect local metaphor for the Eden Gardens pitch on which Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were weaving their match-winning spells. The colour palette was perfect. The Bengal clay seemed alive and squirming as the two opening bowlers completed spells that became the winning difference.

Throughout this intriguing World Cup, seam and swing bowlers have had a shallow pool to swim in. Batsmen wielding willow light sabres, throttling balls towards and over short boundaries, have dominated, while the spinners have had their share of the spoils as the pitches wear or are spared use of the heavy roller.

The variety in pitch behaviour has been an essential ingredient at this tournament. Heaven help the game if a batch of homogeneous, drop-in surfaces had been ordered and delivered. The result of the toss would have become irrelevant and the weather forecasters, who predicted dews of varying density, would be more important than umpires and coaches.

I am yet to hear a single commentator explain the “dew point”. It’s a pretty basic combination of relative humidity, air pressure and temperature and therefore quite predictable. It is an important factor when considering whether to bat or bowl first as it affects the ground and pitch conditions in the second innings of day/night games quite a bit. Turning pitches at afternoon tea straighten out after dinner.

Australia’s Mitchell Starc slams a delivery into the seething Eden Gardens pitch against South Africa.Credit: AP

South Africa climbed into the top four mainly through lightning starts by Quinton de Kock and a strong middle order who set unchaseable totals. Thursday evening at the Gardens was a completely different shooting match, as the Proteas’ quiver was full of rubber arrows up against an opponent both attacking and suffocating simultaneously.

That pitch seamed, had a bit of uneven bounce and spun at times. The Australians were precise and unforgiving in the opening powerplay, and it won them a match where chasing was always going to be difficult - the pitch offered a little to the bowlers and runs on the board in a sudden-death match are worth intangible extras.

I’m not sure how the late change of pitch in Mumbai affected the other semi-final, but it looked like a reasonably even surface and India won the toss and batted first, perhaps giving New Zealand the advantage of batting in a dew-settling night. In such conditions, the ball will skid rather than prop.

The Wankhede pitches have been known to favour spin from the time of the Mughals, so the Black Caps would have come mentally prepared for spin. It was no secret that India would play at least two if not three twirlers in all of their matches. It is, after all, their home briar patch. Just to add to the confusion, paceman Mohammed Shami bowled magnificently and took seven wickets. So much for the spinning pitch theory.

India celebrate Mohammed Shami’s seven-wicket heroics in the World Cup semi-final victory over New Zealand.Credit: AP

Which brings us to a final of the two best all-round teams in the tournament. India have been magnificent on all sorts of pitches against all comers. You could roll out the Kalahari or the Hume Highway and they could make a winning score. Imperious and brutal batting, slow bowlers of quality and variety and a new-ball trio of skill and scuttle. India don’t need to have a home-ground pitch advantage.

This is a world cup, the winners are supposed to have the very best players. To win, a team must play very well most of the time and brilliantly at others. Australia began the hunt with an indolence rarely seen from them. It was quite surprising to see so many catches dropped and ground balls fumbled. But like a stunned champion, they have reviewed and recovered, peaking at the business end of a tough tour.

The fielding in the semi-final was polished platinum, the catching perfect and those elements mattered in the final wash-up. A three-wicket victory in a play-off match on that pitch is a slim margin. The game could have gone either way when Pat Cummins joined Mitchell Starc with 20 still to get.

An unbeaten India playing at home in front of a 100,000 or so of their blue army presents a serious challenge. Australia have now won eight in a row from all sorts of positions (I’m still getting my head around the Afghanistan result). Winning form is good form and Australia will strongly believe they can win this one. They have form in finals.

The Australian starting line-up will not be pitch dependent. They will play the winning 11 from the semi-final, whereas India may play all three of their spinners if they determine the Ahmedabad strip is bare and dry enough. India’s choices are envious. The weather in the Gujarat desert generally precludes a dewy night and a forecast overnight minimum of 21 degrees confirms that, so the teams will have their performances to rely on, not the weather - as in the 1996 final when Australia had a serious handicap bowling second at Lahore.

I doubt that the pitch will be as brown and lively as the Hooghly. India will start favourites, but this Australian team has the mercury and steel to win anywhere, anytime. I’m picking Australia to win (and crossing my fingers) but it promises to be a cracking dénouement to a cracking tournament.

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