‘Why so scared of cracks?: SA legend Dale Steyn on Newlands pitch after India captain Rohit’s vicious attack
Reacting on the Newlands pitch for IND vs SA 2nd Test, Legendary South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn said there was no need to be scared of cracks.
The talks around the Newlands pitch for the India vs South Africa second Test match will take some time to die down, especially after the open criticisms of India captain Rohit Sharma and to a certain extent even host captain Dean Elgar and head coach Shukri Conrad. The Test match ended up being the shortest ever in the approximately 147-year-long history of Test cricket. India beat South Africa by seven wickets in 107 overs in just a little over four sessions. As many as 33 wickets fell during the Test match - 23 on Day 1 itself - in an unbelievably quick time.
Needless to say, pitch curator Braam Mong faced a lot of heat for the 22-yards that he prepared. The problematic part about the pitch which didn't appear threatening to anybody at first glance was the 9-millimetre grass kept to keep the cracks from widening due to excessive sunlight. But as it turned out, the grass actually made the ball behave unusually.
Legendary South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn, however, said there was no need to be scared of cracks. Steyn said he has played in many Test matches during his glorious career where cracks were so wide that cars could have been parked there.
"Why we so scared of cracks? Think Sydney, Perth. Cracks so wide you can park a car inside them, and yet they always get to days 4 and 5! Pointless a test being over so fast you don’t even see a hint of a crack. Pitches deteriorate over the days, let it happen. Two-day tests are not Test matches," Steyn wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Conditions were treacherous for batsmen from the first morning when South Africa were bowled out for 55 on a surface which had inconsistent bounce as well as pace and considerable seam movement. India, in their reply, lost their last six wickets on 153 - the first instance of a side losing as many wickets at the same score in international cricket.
The pitch didn't fare any better on Day 2. South Africa were bowled out for 176. If it wasn't for a century for the ages from Aiden Markram, they would have found it difficult to even make India bat again.
Such was the condition of the pitch that the Indian side made no attempts to survive while chasing 79. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer approached the chase like a T20. Many believed it was the right approach as even scoring 79 with a survival mindset might have proved to be a challenging task.
According to Cricvuz data, it was the quickest and bounciest pitch outside India in the ball-tracking era.
"We saw what happened in this match, how the pitch played," said Sharma.
"I honestly don't mind playing on pitches like this as long as everyone keeps their mouths shut in India and don't talk too much about Indian pitches."
Sharma said he still couldn't believe that the pitch for last year's World Cup final in Ahmedabad -- where his team were defeated by Australia -- was rated below average.
"The ICC, the match referees, need to start rating pitches on what they see, not based on the countries. Honestly, I would like to see how the pitches are rated."
