High bounce or low bounce - which sort of wicket good for us?

[Eshen]

I saw some arguments on the board saying low bouncy pitch will give us advantage against England. Will that be so in our current situation with the set of bowlers we have?

Lets look at arguments for two types of pitches-

Low bounce

Argument 1 - It will be hard for English batsmen to adjust to pace of the wicket

Should not it be hard for our batsmen too after coming back from NZ? They are not well known to make quick adjustments.

Argument 2 - It will be easier to handle English pacers

While low bouncy pitch restricts pacers to certain lengths, it may also effect in a good variation of pace before and after the ball pitches. English pacers have good pace (in 135-145 K range) and are also good at bowling at fuller lengths - this means our batsmen will have little time to adjust to speed variation after the ball pitches. Again, most of our batsmen depend a lot on their instincts, adjusting their timing according to pitches is not really their forte.

Argument 3 - Low bouncy pitch will help spinners

To my understanding, spinners will have to bowl flatter on low bouncy pitch, thus will extract less turn. While Razzak may prefer this sort of wicket (since he bowls flatter anyway), Shakib and other spinners may not.


High bounce

Argument 1 - Will be easier for English batsmen to adjust to pace of the wicket

True, but our batsmen should get the same advantage.

Argument 2 - Will be harder to take on English pacers

True, they will have better range of lengths to test our batsmen, but as long bounces are not variable, our batsmen should be able to cope . I feel confident about them in this case after what I have seen of them during last two series.

Weather in March should not offer enough moisture for swing. The seam should also diminish fast if the pitch is grassless and rough. If the pitch has any advantage to offer for pacers, our pacers should be able to take advantage of it better because of their familiarity with our pitches.

Argument 3 - Spinners will be easier to play

On contrary, I think our spinners will create more trouble with turn and bounce. Shakib in particular enjoys bouncier pitches where he can loop up the ball higher.


What do you guys think?

[One World]

I think our batsmen has improved quite well in high bounce recently. Also I like the argument on high bounce specially spinners. I remember Riad getting a wicket after being hit. Shakib was phenomenal. I would give my edge to the second option.

[Eshen]

BTW, there is a good article by Aakash Chopra how low bounce or high bounce may effect the game -

The games bounce plays (http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/437530.html)

[al-Sagar]

similar to the triseries, there will be no dew and that will be on our favour

[Eshen]

As I expected, the low bouncy wicket backfired on us :(

[Haradhon]

As I expected, the low bouncy wicket backfired on us :(

Low bounce helped Tamim score 125 against the like of Broad. But the team has to score 300+ for a competitive game

[auntu]

As I expected, the low bouncy wicket backfired on us :(
I won't say it back fired rather we couldn't grab the chances we had.

[AsifTheManRahman]

Yeah, it doesn't matter what kind of wicket we play on if we don't know how to bat.

[BangladeshFan]

I won't say it back fired rather we couldn't grab the chances we had.

I agree 100%.

I think, low bounce turners is definitly the way to go against England.

[fwullah]

The last home series that we played against England, the wicket was high-bouncy.

It is just that our batsman do not know how to apply themselves on turning and low bouncy wicket against quality seam and accurate spin bowling. England may not have quality spinners like ours (Rafique, Sakib) or perhaps even like Zimbabwe (Price, Utseya), but their spinners are accurate enough to trouble our incompetent and out of form batsman. Also, their pace-men are of high quality, against which, all our best players has to be bat better than they usually do to at least mount up a decent total.

Also, our new ball pace attack has to improve a lot, in such case of low scoring games like the last one.

[Eshen]

Time to bump the thread.

I admit accuracy of our spinners have gone down significantly at this point. However, I still think they would have done better if the pitch offered better bounce. For Cook and Pietersen, two batsmen with good footwork, slowness of the pitch actually made it easier to negotiate spin.

[nahaz]

Really disappointed that we still have to spend more brain cells thinking about type of wicket than we do in planning against a particular player.

[Eshen]

I think last SA-India series can be used as a good example here. India lost the first Test of the series, and wanted a low-slow wicket for the second Test. But Eden Garden curator was adamant and prepared a relatively faster wicket, and India won the match there by an innings with a superb performance from Harbi !

http://www.cricinfo.com/indvrsa2010/engine/match/441826.html

IMO, the Chittagong wicket was too dry, and that dryness resulted in both less bounce and less turn, and thus made the spinners ineffective. The curator prolly mowed the grass lot earlier than he should have.

[Eshen]

Really disappointed that we still have to spend more brain cells thinking about type of wicket than we do in planning against a particular player.
IMO, at this point, instead of concentrating too much on the opposition (who are generally more experienced and better trained to adjust to different conditions), we should concentrate on how we can give our players maximum advantage on home grounds. Again, I don't think low bouncy wicket is the way to go about it.