|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 4 July 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Sports |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Gilchrist, Dyson slam Darwin pitch Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from Australia DARWIN, July 3 - Australia's stand-in captain Adam Gilchrist and Sri Lanka's Australian coach John Dyson slammed the Marrara Oval pitch here after the first cricket Test ended inside three days here today. Australia scored 207 and 201 and Sri Lanka replied with 97 and 162 to lose by 149 runs. "I don't think the wicket was quite up to Test standards. It is pretty obvious when a Test finishes like this. With the quality of batsmen around in both teams it is not quite there," said Gilchrist who led Australia in the absence of Ricky Ponting. "What this type of pitch does is, it becomes a bit of a lottery on the result. If you get a good hour in a one-day match it changes the game, but in Test cricket it doesn't. So the better team generally wins," Gilchrist continued. "I think we executed better with our bats than they did. Both teams bowled really well in the right areas. We probably deserved to take the match in the end because we were able to play ourselves a little bit better when it was up for grabs," he said. Gilchrist said that it was not so much the overhead conditions, but it was the pitch that was the key problem. "It was not so much the seam and swing, it's just the variable bounce. All you ask for in a good cricket pitch is consistency in bounce. I think that's what most players will call not up to standard," he said. Gilchrist said that if Darwin were to continue to be a future Test venue the authorities up here would have to make improvements to the pitch. "It is difficult with dropping wickets to know what you have to do and what you don't have to do to get it right. It's been dropping wickets now for many years at the MCG and they've got it right," said Gilchrist. "This is only the second time up here. It's early stages. I hope the authorities will take it up and talk about how this pitch wasn't up to standard, and realize where we are with regard to cricket up here and hopefully learn from it. You've got to make improvements if you are going to make Test cricket attractive here. Darwin has the facilities and it is up to Test standard. But the most important ingredient is a good cricket pitch," he said. Sri Lanka coach Dyson said: "When Australia gets bowled out twice for 200 that should tell you something about the wicket and when a Test match finishes in under three days it also tells you something about the wicket." "There were seven class batsmen in either team and they got bowled out twice. The highest score in the game was 207. In a good game of Test cricket you are expected to go into the fifth day. You can draw up your own conclusions from that," said Dyson not committing himself to be drawn into a controversy over the state of the pitch. "It's not very often that Australia gets bowled out twice for 200 in a Test. I don't think either team batted particularly well in either innings because it is a difficult wicket to bat on. It seamed a heck of a lot. The scores indicate that. The wicket was a seaming wicket and a lot of the players were good enough to nick the seaming ball," he said. Dyson admitted that Australia bowled really well. "They knew the wicket was favourable for their type of bowling and they bowled exactly the way they should. Look at our seamers. Apart from Vaasy (Vaas) they are not in the same class. But we still knocked over the world champions twice for 200." Sri Lanka captain Marvan Atapattu said that on a pitch of this nature even if Sri Lanka had played 11 batsmen it would not have made a difference to the result. "Nobody was really in. It was that much difficult to handle as a batsman." Atapattu admitted that the run out of Kumar Sangakkara for nought was a crucial blow to their chances. "Had it not happened it would have been better. Sanga is batting well at the moment. I think losing him by way of a run out was a crime at that time. Normally Sanath runs very well. It was one of those days where he didn't judge his runs 100 percent," said Atapattu. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
