As the Australian players convened at their team hotel for the now customary pre-Test trivia evening Tuesday night, heavy rain lashed the coastal resort town of Port Elizabeth and further nourished a pitch that already bears a heavy coating of thick grass.
One of the questions that might have been posed to the assembled players, support staff, partners and children was ‘who scored a hard-fought 108 on the second day of the previous Test match between the current combatants at St George’s Park in 1997?’.
The answer, of course, is Australia.
Confronted by a green carpet not dissimilar to the one Michael Clarke inspected with mild surprise yesterday, and which prompted the same sort of concerns – that it seemed, or seamed as the case may be, tailor-made for South Africa’s bowlers – Mark Taylor’s team was skittled in their first innings.
But on the back of some inspired bowling by Jason Gillespie and one of Mark Waugh’s truly great hundreds, the Australians snatched a famous win that was crowned by Ian Healy’s match-winning six over backward square leg from the bowling of rival skipper Hansie Cronje.
If the pitch for the Test that starts in Port Elizabeth Thursday, which head groundsman Adrian Carter has claimed carries so much grass at present it “scares” him, bears the same characteristics of its predecessor of 17 years ago then Clarke’s prediction of a three-day Test might yet prove correct.
The Australian captain was trying his hardest to toe the line of diplomacy yesterday when asked about the state of the deck, and the fact that Carter was awaiting further instructions from the South African brainstrust as to what happens to it next.
That assessment was made prior to the Proteas training at the ground later in the day, and their coach Russell Domingo – who conceded pre-series that he had placed an order with each of the curators at the three Test venues for seamer-friendly conditions – had inspected the surface.
“I had a chat to the groundsman today – at the moment the grass is 8mm high,” Clarke said, with an element of surprise given that’s a level of grass that would not look out of place on centre court during Wimbledon’s first week.
“I asked what he's going to do with that (and) he said he's going to speak to their (South Africa’s) captain and coach before (he) makes a decision.
“So I'm interested to see what the South African captain and coach's plans are for this wicket.”
For his part, South Africa captain Graeme Smith denied his side had made any demands. "One thing I've learned is that when you ask for things you generally don't get them," he said. "We just requested a good Test wicket."
The notion of the home team requesting conditions that best suit their own strengths and exposes their touring rivals’ frailties is nothing new.
Trips to the sub-continent have been based on that premise for more than half a century, while England took the concept to a new level during the recent Ashes series in England in order to blunt Australia’s pace attack and make hay for their then world-class off-spinner, Graeme Swann.
But it has become so overt in recent years that Clarke felt compelled to wonder aloud if it might not be time that Australian teams began to enter into a far more conspiratorial relationship with curators who are among a few on the world scene who believe their job is to serve the best interests of the game rather than the home players.
“It doesn’t bother me, that’s a big part of playing international cricket, you travel the world and play in different conditions,” Clarke said.
“I think it’s a big part our game that the captain, especially, can communicate with the groundsman in his home country and produce the wicket that is best suited to their team.
“I would like to see it happen more that way in Australia but in saying that I think the wickets in Australia … we’re very lucky compared to a lot of other countries around the world.
“We get very good Test cricket wickets, there’s normally enough in there for quicks and spin bowling but generally if you get in it’s a beautiful place to bat.
“So it’s not like I don’t communicate (with Australian groundsmen), I speak very openly and honestly with our groundsmen but I’m confident that they’ll produce a great cricket wicket anyway.”
The problem for South Africa, as became brutally apparent during the first Test at Centurion when they were confronted by the fastest pitch many had seen there in years, was that it plays more snugly into the hands of the team that includes Mitchell Johnson than it does the local quicks.
St George's Park pitch #nofilter #SAvAUS pic.twitter.com/SkPYsLhopF
— CA Digital Media (@CricketAus) February 19, 2014
For that reason, Clarke is expecting the pitch at St George’s Park will be subjected to a fairly major, and reasonably urgent haircut as soon as the ground is sufficiently dry for the groundsmen to go about their work.
What he’s not expecting is a repeat of the Centurion pitch, largely because of the vastly different climatic conditions between the Highveld and the Eastern Cape, but also because of the damage that Johnson and others were able to inflict on the fourth – and as it transpired, final – day.
“I thought it was a nasty wicket to be honest,” Clarke said of the strip at Centurion where his team completed an emphatic 281-run victory last Saturday.
“I think in our first innings it was probably at its best, especially after lunch when it hardened up a bit and then it was ugly.
“It was up and down through the whole match (and) I don’t think either team were comfortable batting on it to be honest. A lot of blokes got hit.
“The hardest thing on that wicket was it wasn’t consistent, some balls were staying low some were bouncing, that as a batsman was hard to work out - do you stand up and try and block it or do you try and duck?
“I think why you saw blokes from both teams cop bruises.
“That’s why we lasted three overs (before declaring on the fourth morning), I saw enough and thought if we bowl the way I thought we could bowl I didn’t think it would go into day five.”
