Former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower on Thursday labelled the pitch for the T20 World Cup semifinal here as ‘dangerous’ after Afghanistan suffered a nine-wicket defeat to South Africa.
On a tough pitch with variable bounce and exaggerated seam movement, Afghanistan folded for a mere 56 in 11.5 overs for their lowest T20I total as South Africa made their first-ever World Cup final.
While Flower backed Afghanistan’s decision to bat after winning the toss, he said it was impossible for the batters to gauge the bounce off the surface.
“You can't blame Afghanistan for doing what they did at the toss. They had such an excellent record batting first and then defending with a very good varied attack of their own,” Flower told ESPNCricinfo.
“But batting first was a really tough ask. You didn't know what a good score would be and they were just blown away.”
“A couple of balls flew off a length around, sort of shoulder, neck, chin height off the South African quicks and one of them flew over Quinton de Kock — the ‘keeper's head and gloves for four byes. I was pleased that no one got hurt,” Flower said.
Flower, who coaches Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL, said visuals of the pitch revealed the cracks and blocks which produced a ‘wild variance in bounce’.
“You saw some interesting visual shots from above the square and a couple of the commentators referenced this being a brand new pitch. Perhaps, they could have used a pitch that had been used previously,” he said.
“Those shots showed that crazy paving-type effect and that those blocks and the cracks produced this wild variance in bounce. As a batter, you're trying to predict where the ball is going to be. You want to meet it somewhere near the middle of the bat, at least.”
“(But) on this pitch, it was almost impossible to do that on any consistent basis at all. I thought it was actually a little bit dangerous,” said the former England head coach.
Former Australia all-rounder Tom Moody said batting on that pitch at the Brian Lara Stadium was ‘a very difficult challenge to combat’.
“I don't think you'd want to see it in any game, to be honest with you. You want a fair contest between bat and ball and I'm not advocating that we need to have surfaces that you need 200 plus runs,” he said.
“But you need consistent bounce — that is the most important thing — (and) any batter would hold their hands up and say, that is the most important thing.”
“If you've got one ball that's hitting the toe of your bat or one that you feel like you're going to punch with your gloves at the same length, that is a very difficult challenge to combat,” he added.
Moody observed presence of thick grass near the cracks on the pitch led to invariable bounce on the surface.
“You see, this sort of crazy paving, if I could put it that way, where a lot of dense grass was gathered around those cracks — you could just tell that was the thing that promoted the inconsistency of bounce,” he said.
“It'll be something that they'll reflect on, if not reflecting on already and thinking, well, we've got this wrong,” added Moody.
