mid-day Opinion: Lord’s pitch deserves severe condemnation

Representation pic

Cricket Lovely Cricket, At Lord's where I saw it." One can bet that this calypso composed by West Indies's Lord Beginner to celebrate the region's win over England in 1950 was not sung by die-hard cricket lovers as they left the famous cricket venue in London on Sunday.

What those spectators got for shelling out their hard-earned money for the England vs New Zealand Test was 40 wickets falling across four days (the third day was marred by rain) on a pitch that was nothing short of a disgrace.

The argument that batsmen displayed poor technique to cause the early end holds no water. The variable bounce was visible as soon as the umpires called play on Thursday. Lord's is known as the Mecca of cricket, the spiritual home of cricket. What the pitch dished out for the 150th Test there was devilishly inappropriate. "The attention to detail at this ground in the periphery is absolutely spot-on, but the bit in the middle [pitch] is the most important bit and it's not good enough at the moment," former England captain Nasser Hussain rightly said.

The English authorities have apologised for the pitch disgrace, and the ICC will ensure Lord's gets a black mark in its books, but it's time for more punitive action to avoid such scenarios. ‘Guilty' venues attracting negative points and getting a warning, however stern, is not the answer. Does true punishment lie in directing the host country not to award that ground a match whenever is their turn to host one? Probably, even though we must keep in mind that a lot of factors go into the preparation of a perfect pitch, weather conditions included.

England won at Lord's, but cricket lost.