Wickets around the world

by A. C. de Silva

CRICKET: Cricket pitches as everyone knows, are creatures of unique personality. A feature of their individuality is that they frequently tend to develop reputations for favouring different types of players.

Take for example the Bourda ground in Georgetown, Guyana for example, has provided pitches which have been tailor - made for batting while some other venues - Headingley for one - are generally much more friendly to bowlers.

And at some grounds, of course, pitches have clearly flavoured particular types of bowler. In Pakistan like Lahore, which at times become a spinners paradise overnight - or, at least, a Qadir's paradise - may be the exception which proves the rule.

So, the time has come for a method of assessing how different sorts of bowlers have fared in recent years at various Test match grounds around the world.

There is, of course, a rich variety of styles amongst Test bowlers, and before we can do anything by way of analysis we must group those styles which have some basic.

Similarity

The most obvious classes, rather crude though they must necessarily be, are made up of Spinners on the one hand and medium - paced to fast bowlers on the other.

Fortunately, most Test bowlers belong clearly in one category or the other, though a few who bowl or bowled in more than one mode are problematic.

Greg Chappell, for example, occasionally, bowled leg - spin in Tests during his time, but was in the main a medium - pacer, Similarly Karson Ghavri of India was a fast medium bowler who at times dealt in slow left - arm finger spin. In these cases, the bowler is assigned to that category which describes most fairly the majority of his bowling.

There is the third group which might be labelled the 'occasionals', who are defined as those who bowled, on average, fewer than 60 deliveries per match during their Test careers.

Then from this bunch included are batsmen who never bowl except in the dying moments of a match when the result is clear.

Allan Lamb and Dilip Vengsarkar, (for example) as well as those who bowl periodically to relieve the specialists but who rarely carry a 'full - time' bowling load (Jimmy Amarnath, Graham Gooch, Jeremy Coney and Martin Crowe) and those who cover the absence of a specialist spinner (Viv Richards, Larry Gomes, Peter Willey and on occasions, Allan Border).

Useful bowlers

There are some useful bowlers in the list, but all are essentially batsman or "batting all - rounders". Worldwide in the Test matches of the period since September 1979 occasionals are defined here have done less than five per cent of the bowling and have claimed fewer than three per cent of the wickets to fall to bowlers. The group is excluded from the analysis.

Now to check the performance of spinners and medium - paced - to - fast bowlers at the world's Test match grounds between September 1979 and August 1987.

Because the point of interest is the general character of a ground's pitches over a period rather than their behaviour in a particular match or two, those 10 grounds which hosted fewer than three games during the eight- year period are excluded from scrutiny.

Thirty-one grounds, then, are examined.

Four measures are used in comparing the two types of bowlers: the average (runs conceded per wicket claimed), the strike - rate (balls delivered per wicket taken), proportion of total bowling load carried and proportion of total 'bowlers' wickets' captured.

Several conclusions are possible. For example the spinners generally have to send down more deliveries to get a wicket than the quicker bowlers, with the result that the medium - paced and faster bowlers take wickets in numbers out of proportion to the amount of bowling they do.

Almost everywhere the subordination of spin to seam and pace is evident. At only five of the 31 grounds - all of them, significantly, in India and Pakistan - do spinners bowl more than do the quicker men.

And at about three - quarters of the venues the pacemen, overall, have averages superior to those of the spinners.

Interestingly, though, grounds at which the spin bowlers do as well as or better than seamers and fast bowlers are scattered throughout the cricketing world - the sole exception being the West Indies.

After studying many grounds over the years, the best grounds for spinners have been found as those at Karachi and Asgiriya in Kandy and rather surprisingly Auckland. India's most spinner-helpful venue - Bombay, comes next, followed by Headingley Bangalore, and Sydney. On the wickets or each of these seven grounds spinners have averaged, during the eighties, fewer than 30 runs per wicket. Surprisingly, six of the Test-playing nations are represented in the list of seven grounds.

Scales loaded

At the other end of the scale come three West Indian venues: Bridgetown (where the somewhat miserable nine wickets claimed by spinners during the five matches have cost more than 90 runs apiece), Georgetown and St. John's Adelaide, Kanpur and Brisbane, all with 'averages' of over 50 rank next as places where spin bowlers achieve little. Incidentally, in case it is thought that Kanpur is out of place in this list and that Indian wickets are routinely prepared specifically to assist the home team's spinners, it should be noted that on the four of the six Indian grounds the spin bowlers average more than 40 runs per wicket.

As elsewhere, in fact, the fast bowlers tend to get their wickets more cheaply and more quickly in India than do the spinners.

What about the grounds whose wickets help the fastest bowlers?

At the top of the list are Kingston in the West Indies, the Colombo Cricket Club grounds, Bridgetown and Headlingley.

At each of these venues the medium-to-quick brigade averages less than 25 per wicket. At a further 12 grounds, the average between 25 and 30. Only in the Southern India cities of Madras and Bangalore does the average rise above 40.

Spinners do much of the bowling in Tests in the West Indies than they do at Headingley, in fact - though in the Caribbean they are more likely to be confined to the defensive role on wickets to which they are (Queen's Park Oval alone possibly excepted) ill - suited.