Australian cricket pitches are almost too perfect, writes Robert Craddock

AUSTRALIAN cricket pitches are some of the best in the world. But that might actually be a problem for some of our players, writes Robert Craddock.

Nathan Lyon training for the Sydney Test. Picture: Gregg Porteous

IF there is a low-light that becomes a highlight this year it will be when an Australian curator gets a Test pitch completely wrong.

Because it might mean he has actually got it right.

What a sneaky joy it would be to see a curator mildly panicking on Test match morning and claiming “I’m sorry but I got this wrong by taking too much grass off — it’s dry and cracking already. Batsmen beware.’’

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If that was the case who knows what sort of strange things might happen.

Maybe Australia’s battling group of spinners might fill their boots with wickets and get some confidence for tours to Asia which currently feel as foreign as playing on the moon.

And maybe Australia’s Test batsmen might get some decent practice against world class spin on turning decks without having to go the Mumbai or Colombo.

Nathan Lyon would benefit from less perfect pitches.

One of the reasons Australia plays so poorly abroad these days is that our wickets are too similar and sterile.

You don’t have to apologise for a high class Test strip but just occasionally it’s good for everyone — not the least the spectator — to have something different, suspect and volatile.

Which is why the SCG strip will hopefully turn at least as much as it has been turning all season.

If it cracks like a windscreen and turns like carousel, happy days.

The only mistake curator Tom Parker can make is to make it too much like Melbourne which was like Adelaide which was like Perth.

With a four Test tour of India looming the SCG Test is a crucial match for Australia even though it is a dead rubber.

This strip must turn.

Australia needs to give its spin bowlers extensive workouts and its batsmen lengthy exposure to leg-spinner Yasir Shah on a wicket that suits him for a change rather than the flat, featureless drop-in wicket in Melbourne which suited no bowler at all.

Aussie batsmen would benefit from some different conditions. Picture: Gregg Porteous

Wicket technology has improved markedly in recent times and with Australian curators pooling their knowledge it is pleasing that Australian wickets have become among the best prepared in the world.

But there is such a thing as being too perfect.

Remember those old days when Tony Greig used to talk about widening cracks in the wicket with such animation you’d swear they were the work of alien pitch invaders.

There will be no such complaints if such cracks appear in Sydney this week.

The bowlers are due for some relief.

Originally published as Australian cricket pitches are almost too perfect, writes Robert Craddock