Trent Bridge curator Steve Birks admits that he has got his pitch preparation wrong
India, after winning the toss and choosing to bat on day 1 of the 1st Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, ended the day having scored 259/4, with Murali Vijay 122* and MS Dhoni 50* at the crease. While India probably edged the proceedings on day 1 as they lost just 4 wickets, England toiled hard and tried their heart out on a pitch that hasn’t been too helpful to the seam bowlers.
Every country, while playing at home, would expect a pitch that is suitable to their style of play. The strength of the English team is their fast bowlers, and the Indians have traditionally struggled against the swing and seam movement and the bounce on offer in England.
So much so that India’s record in England is the worst of all the countries that they have played in: a winning ratio of 18%. With that being the case, it was surprising to see neither any seam movement nor any carry in the Trent Bridge wicket, making the pitch resemble more Nagpur than Nottingham.
This has unfortunately led to the spotlight being more on the pitch rather than the players themselves, which is never ideal. The pitch doesn’t seem to have any assistance for the fast bowlers and has made the contest between bat and ball skewed too heavily in favour of the batsmen. Steve Birks, the pitch curator at Trent Bridge, has admitted that his endeavour of producing a pitch with pace and bounce hasn’t come to fruition and is hoping against hope that the pitch quickens up a bit in the days ahead.
"We wanted to produce a pitch with pace, bounce and carry which hasn't happened unfortunately," Birks said.
"There's quite a lot of moisture underneath but it's a hard surface on top which is why it's lacking pace. The moisture readings taken earlier in the week were quite high and we haven't seen enough of the sun to really bake it out."
"Our only instruction is to produce a good cricket wicket and, with hindsight, we may have left a bit more grass on it but this is the first day of a five-day Test and, while I don't expect spin to come into it, we hope it might quicken up a bit," the groundsman concluded.