Is this the surprise we are talking about here?

[tanim3960]

Right before South Africa came to Bangladesh all the media were talking about the mirpur stadium pitch.
Head groundsman Shafiul Alam Belal said: "I can tell you, these will be far different than any other Bangladeshi pitches. They will be hard and fast. And yes, they will be bouncy." he also added there will be a lot of surprise in the pitch. Bangladesh coach Jamie Siddons said "The wicket is slow and low in Mirpur and it will help our spinners...........
Bangladesh skipper Mohammad Ashraful: "We know that South Africa are usually used to play on seeming and bouncy wicket, but here they'll find slow and turning wicket, which may create some problems for them."

http://www.cricket365.com/story/0,18...185021,00.html

when i was reading the newspapers it also said it will help the spin bowlers.
But did it really help the spin bowler?
we saw morkel & sahadat (6) the two fast bowler taking 5 wicket each for their team. Steyn - three wicket in his second innings. Nitini one...
According to the head grounds man Saiful Alam is this the surprise we are talking about here where fast bowlers getting advantage than spin bowlers? or u still think that Rafique will have the advantage here than Sahadat or Mashrafee when Bangladesh will come onto bowl in their last innings.... ur thoughts

[Nafi]

The surprise here, is this pitch is solid/hard and has uneven bounce, this is what helped Shahadat and Morkel, but also this pitch craxks up alot, I think thats the surprise, and watch in the 3rd and 4th day how much advantage the spinners get.

[hoodlum]

the pitch is slow and low...its pretty tough batting here..esp in the 4th innings...i think all the bowlers of bd will get the advantage if they can just stick into line & length...

[WarWolf]

This is the worst pitch in Bangladesh in terms of being a sporting one.

[mshakir56]

I don't like this pitch, uneven bounce, very low bounce. no fun watching ! Lets see how much our bowlers get helf in the last innings !

[AsifTheManRahman]

I didn't think the bounce was extravagantly uneven, to be honest. Sure there were occasions where the ball jumped a bit, but the pitch played slow and low most of the time. A consistent pitch can never be an unsporting one - that would be certain pitches in the subcontinent that pose injury threats to players, not this one.

Wait till the late hours of the third/early hours of the fourth day. The surface will crack up and the sla's will come out in broad daylight, all guns blazing.

[thasan]

it looks an OK pitch. and never an unsporting one. it has unoccasional uneven bounce. and it is not a bouncy track. so whats wrong with it? we have to play bouncy tracks when when go to SA...right?

[Eshen]

Belal was clearly bs-ing when he said the pitch will be bouncy. It was not the bounce, it was the skiddy nature of the pitch that troubled the Saffers most.

[Ajfar]

batting in the 4th innings will be really tough for SA...hopefully our batsman will put a gud total for oncee..

[tiger_omar]

Originally Posted by mshakir56
I don't like this pitch, uneven bounce, very low bounce. no fun watching ! Lets see how much our bowlers get helf in the last innings !

How can you not have fun watching this! The bounce is low and uneven, but would you rather have a dead pitch that doesn't do anything for the pacers and only helps the spinner after day 3? At least now we've got a game in our hand. And if we take good care of this situation, we can InshAllah win this match.

Also I don't think there's too much wrong with this pitch either, except for the low bounce. Because most of Shahadat's wickets were well bowled inswingers and Steyn got the ball to move too yesterday, so it was good bowling. Other than a bit of uneven bounce, I think that this pitch has held up pretty well so far.