The seaming pitch used for the Brisbane Test that kickstarted the three-match rubber between hosts Australia and South Africa has been given a “below average” rating by the International Cricket Council. The governing body came up with a verdict for the surface on Tuesday.
The Gabba witnessed one of the quickest finishes to a Test match in the sport’s history, with less than 150 overs bowled collectively over the span of two days, where 34 wickets fell, one going down every 25.5 deliveries, which marked the second-best strike rate ever in Test history.
At no stage of the game did the batters look settled in the middle, with the ball dominating the proceedings and duly running through the sides. Australia bundled out the Proteas for scores of 152 and 99, while themselves being reduced to 218 all out and 35/4 either side of those.
“Overall, the Gabba pitch for this Test match was too much in favour of the bowlers,”
match referee for the first Test, Richie Richardson, said in a statement.
“There was extra bounce and occasional excessive seam movement. The odd delivery also kept low on the second day, making it very difficult for batters to build partnerships.”
“I found the pitch to be ‘below average’ as per the ICC guidelines since it was not an even contest between bat and ball.”
The sentiment that the pitch didn’t assist a “fair contest” between the two skills was expressed by South African captain Dean Elgar, too. However, Richardson didn’t agree with the part where the skipper also suggested it to be a dangerous track for players’ safety.
The surface did offer pacers excessive seam movement off the back of the length area apart from retaining the usual high-end bounce that the Gabba is known for. But at no stage did it threaten to hurt the batters by jumping up and down off various patches.
Australian captain Pat Cummins perhaps judged it right, when he said it was “tricky” by extreme nature but not physically threatening to the players, which maybe why when Elgar complained to the umpires about the proceedings and the track mid-Test, they didn’t take the players off the field and continued with the play.
