Snakes 'n ladders in Centurion, a clay court at St Georges. What does Newlands hold?

Times Media - February 26, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Knysna

Snakes ’n ladders in Centurion and a clay court at St George’s Park have added richly to the intrigue in the test series between SA and Australia. What will Newlands bring to the pitch party when hostilities resume in the deciding showdown on Saturday?

But David Warner’s suggestion that SA used questionable tactics to obtain reverse swing in Port Elizabeth could focus attention on what happens to the ball when it is in the home side’s hands, rather than what it does off the pitch.

The last time Australia played a test in Cape Town, in November, 2011, they were shot out for 47 in 18 overs in their second innings. At least one South African does not want to see that happen again.

“I hope it doesn’t - that could be the end of me,” Newlands groundsman Evan Flint said yesterday.

Twenty-three wickets fell on a second day that, for only the third time in test history, involved all four innings.

The carnage had less to do with Flint than the fact that the water table was high, as it often is in Cape Town in November. The excess moisture in the surface and in the air produced pronounced seam movement and swing. Superb bowling by Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel did the rest. Those conditions are unlikely to prevail this time.

“It’s been hot and humid for days and we’ve had a strong south-easter, which is the drying wind,” Flint said. “That tends to mean the pitch is crusty on top with moisture on the bottom.

“But the wind should be gone tomorrow (today), which means we’ll have baking heat that will dry it out.”

“In terms of grass coverage it still has a green tinge, which is to be expected at this stage.”

Although Centurion yielded three centuries, two scores above 80, and a total of 1093 runs in four days - or 3.47 runs an over - players on both sides complained of variable bounce in the pitch. One Australian journalist labelled the pitch the “deck of death”.

Onto slower, lower, truer St George’s, where four centuries and four half-centuries were seen in four days adding up to 1155 runs at 3.55 to the over. This surface was rubbished as the “pitch of poop” in the Aussie press.

Both pitches also allowed bowlers to shine. In Centurion, Mitchell Johnson spearheaded Australia to an emphatic 281-run win by taking 12/127. Steyn’s wonderful display of reverse swing in the second innings in Port Elizabeth earned him figures of 4/55 - an important subplot in the drama of SA’s 231-run victory.

But, according to Warner, SA could find themselves under scrutiny at Newlands should their bowlers make the ball behave similarly.

“I think it comes down to the umpires warning both teams not to throw the ball into the wicket, which you generally try and do,” Warner told Sky Sports Radio. “We were questioning whether or not, with every delivery, AB de Villiers would get the ball in his hand and, with his glove, wipe the rough side.”

Warner said the Australians would take up their issues with the umpires.