Are County cricket pitches soft targets for England's overseas defeats?

It is no surprise that the standard of County Championship pitches has once again been thrust into the spotlight following England's capitulation in Australia. It was the same after the heavy defeat in India last winter. It has become the go-to excuse when England lose yet another series away from home. Quick, blame the pitches. But that criticism conveniently ignores the simple fact that, on average, pitch marks for Championship matches have improved in recent years.

After England's defeat in India last year, domestic pitches were criticised for not turning enough. Now, following the Ashes horror show, county pitches are said to be doing too much, encouraging medium pace dobbers instead of pace-like-fire quicks and batters to take their chances rather than learn to bat time. The charge is that county pitches don't help prepare players for Test cricket. Joe Root has said it. Ashley Giles has said it. Chris Silverwood too. And the charge seems to be sticking.

That is despite improved pitch marks. Surfaces in the Championship are rated at the end of each match by an ECB appointed match referee across four different areas: unevenness, seam movement, carry and bounce and turn. A score of six is considered 'very good', five is 'good' while an 'unfit' pitch would be scored as a one. According to the ECB's pitch criteria guidance, when assessing the surface, match referees "shall consider the balance between bat and ball" and judge the pitch on how it plays not what it looks like.

Across 125 Championship matches in 2021, the average pitch score was 5.02 out of six. Just under 80% of pitches were rated 'good' or 'very good' by the ECB's match officials. It continues a trend of recent improvement. The average pitch score for Championship games between 2017 and 2021 was 4.99. The average score between 2007 and 2020, a period when England rose to the top of the world rankings, was 4.84. According to the ECB's match referees then, domestic surfaces are, on average, getting better.

What is more, those marks are despite the criteria for 'good' and 'very good' pitches becoming more stringent in recent times, with changes to both reducing the amount of acceptable seam movement and encouraging more turn. Last summer for instance, the pitch for the game between Warwickshire and Essex at Edgbaston, one of the standout matches of the season which the home side won on the final day in an excellent chase, was rated 'good' rather than 'very good' because the match referee considered that the surface did not turn enough on day four.

According to the ECB's scoring criteria, a surface which displayed "regular seam movement on the first AND second or further playing days" (i.e. throughout the game) would be considered "below average". A pitch which had "excessive seam movement at any stage of the match" would be rated poor, irrespective of what it scored for the other three categories. It does not follow then that 79% of pitches were rated 'very good' or 'good' last season if they were all offering too much assistance to the fast-bowlers.

There is admittedly an element of subjectivity in the scoring. What is deemed "regular"? What is deemed "excessive"? Perhaps match referees are too lenient. But if the criteria has got stricter and the marks are still improving, that would not appear to be the case. The sample size is decent enough too. The only objective way of judging seam movement would be to use Hawkeye data but that technology is not available for County Championship matches unless they are televised. For now, the current system is as good as it is going to get.

None of this is to say that there are not some pitches which offer too much assistance to seam bowlers in the County Championship. There are certainly some pitches in every season that really do not replicate the conditions at Test level. There are some grounds where batting is particularly tough, where too many games finish inside two or three days. At times pitches could be flatter and quicker, mirroring the surfaces England tend to play on overseas.

But the sweeping generalisations that have been trotted out about county pitches in recent weeks are wide of the mark. "We all have a bad pitch now and again," Gary Barwell, head groundsman at Edgbaston, says. "It happens. I am not going to say every pitch is brilliant. But the marks at least suggest there isn't a lot wrong."

Paul Farbrace, Warwickshire's Director of Cricket, agrees. "If the pictures are that poor in county cricket, then when players get into Test match cricket on good flat pitches, why don't they score runs? There are a lot of good pitches in county cricket. You might get the odd result pitch, you might get the odd pitch that they haven't had preparation time because of the weather. But I think the majority of the grounds in this country, if not all, take a lot of pride in producing good pitches."

There is often an underlying assumption that surfaces that aid medium pace bowlers are 'result pitches' ordered by Directors of Cricket or head coaches. According to one groundsman Cricbuzz spoke to for this article, that still happens from time to time. That is not a surprise. County cricket is a results business after all. It is all very well saying that pitches should be prepared with international cricket in mind when paying your mortgage doesn't depend on whether your county wins a trophy or finishes in the top Championship flight.

But there are also a host of other reasons why county pitches may not be as good as ground staff would want them to be, where average or poor pitches are the symptom of wider issues not the problem itself. The schedule is perhaps the biggest one. There is now more cricket to factor in than ever before, impacting preparation. "In 1993 when I started as a groundsman, at Edgbaston there were 19 first-class matches," Barwell says. "Last year, there were 32 matches on the same square. That's a massive difference."

Barwell says a break of ten days between matches to prepare a four-day pitch would be ideal. At the start of the season, when there is just one Championship round a week, ground staffs often get that sort of preparatory time, which is perhaps part of the reason why first-class averages have been shown to be better at the start of the summer. In the middle of the season, however, when games come thick and fast, preparation time can be reduced to as little as two days. Slow, low, tired pitches can sometimes be the result.

Early starts and late finishes to seasons matter too. There is now less time over the winter to do repair work on squares and get them ready for the following year. "It is tricky," Barwell says. "From when I first started, we have lost two months of growing and preparation time." If it's a wet and cold April or September, there's only so much that ground staffs can do to remove moisture from their pitches and atmospheric conditions during the early and later months of the season aid seam and swing bowling too.

There is also a discrepancy across counties in terms of people power, facilities and equipment. Barwell admits he is lucky at Edgbaston but other counties are not as fortunate, operating on a shoestring budget with less ground staff than is ideal and without equipment that could make their lives easier. Smaller squares at some venues make it harder to shuffle the decks too. Given the lack of investment at some of the non-Test grounds, is it any wonder that occasionally a pitch does a bit too much?

After England's elimination from the 2015 World Cup, grounds staffs from up and down the country were assembled by the ECB and asked to produce flat, belting wickets for limited overs cricket. That is what they did and it helped England become the best in the world. There has been no such direction for Championship pitches. If those at the ECB like Giles, Silverwood and Root believe county pitches are deficient and holding the Test team back, why have they not told county grounds teams? Why have they not set new expectations?

There are changes that could be made. The ECB could sanction the use of hybrid pitches - a combination of real and plastic grass which stay better for longer - for County Championship matches. They could stipulate that the Kookaburra ball is used for half the Championship rounds. They could help counties invest more in their ground staff, equipment and facilities. At least there are going to be more Championship matches at the height of summer this season when wet, cold weather should be less of a factor.

Improvements can always be found and the more flat, quick pitches the counties can produce the better for England's Test team. But not many Championship surfaces are the seaming, swinging minefields they are sometimes made out to be. Nor is enough focus given to the challenges that ground staffs must face and the decent job that they do in the circumstances. There are many things that need to be looked at in English cricket from coaching to scheduling to selection to the balance between white and red-ball priorities. Pitches should be part of that conversation to be sure but the context needs to be understood.

Pitches are an easy target but, as ever, the reality is a little more complex.