5 times in recent years that a cricket pitch was labelled 'unsporting'
It is not a very rare thing in cricket to hear about people having issues with the nature of a particular pitch; be it the players, the officials, the administrators or the experts for that matter. However, there have been certain occasions when there has been a common consensus about a pitch being of an ‘unsporting’ nature.While this kind of criticism is at times related to the poor condition of a pitch, it is also quite often about the flatness of the track which takes a result out of the equation. In the recent years, there have been quite a few instances of a pitch being labelled ‘unsporting’.Let’s take a closer look at 5 of them:
#1 Pakistan vs England, 1st Test at Abu Dhabi, October 2015
One of the most recent instances of a pitch being considered ‘unsporting’ came in October this year in a Test between Pakistan and England. The pitch at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi was in the news for all the wrong reasons as it went on to witness a tame draw on 5th day when play was finally called off for bad light.
It was not for nothing that the track drew such intense criticism. Both teams scored more than 500 runs in their first innings and only 16 wickets fell during the first 4 days ot the Test, out of which the spinners got just 3.
At a time when Test cricket is struggling to fight for its identity against the more popular shorter formats, this kind of pitch provided to be a poor advertisement for the longest format of cricket.