Pace show on a lifeless turf

The India skipper's assessment about the Edgbaston pitch as “loses its essence” was blunt, although his bowlers ended on top

- Ashish Magotra

There is a famous photo in the corridor at The Oval cricket ground. The groundsman Bosser Martin is posing with his massive four-ton roller, Bosser’s Pet, in front of the scoreboard after England had notched up a then record 903 runs in a 1938 Ashes Test with Len Hutton scoring a then world record 364.

The roller was used to crush all life out of the pitch, and The Times commented that the match was “reduced to a run-making competition and bowlers were regarded essentially as a luxury”.

Cut to 2025 and the current series against India. Edgbaston was nowhere near as bad but for huge parts of the game, the bowlers were reduced to little more than machines spewing the ball. The pitch was flat, it was slow, and there was nothing in it for them. A total of 1,062 runs were scored with Shubman Gill alone scoring 430 of them, the second highest aggregate by a player in a Test.

"It gets very difficult for the bowlers," Gill said after India’s victory. "Even more than the (pitch), the ball is going soft and out of shape very quickly. I don't know what it is - weather, (pitches) or whatever - but it gets very difficult for the bowlers to get wickets in these conditions. As a team, when you know it is difficult to get wickets and runs are coming easily, a lot of things are out of your control.