Old Trafford Test pitch preview with Private Hudson

Private Hudson says…

Hey, maybe you haven’t been keeping up on current events, but Australia just got their asses kicked. That doesn’t make England a squad of ultimate badasses though. They’re still 2-1 down. It’s a must-win game for them, so what can we expect from the Old Trafford pitch?

We’re entering North-West England’s rainy season now, but Old Trafford pitches do tend to be hard and fast at this time of year after being sun-scorched throughout May and June. This year was hot as hell – and it was a dry heat too.

The thinking has therefore always been that Old Trafford is the UK pitch that most favours faster bowlers and spinners. Does that hold up though in recent times? Let’s take a look at the last few Test matches played here.

Last year England famously beat South Africa by an innings after losing the first match of that series at Lord’s.

In South Africa’s first innings, all 10 wickets were either edges or LBWs and nine were taken by fast-medium bowlers. The good length ball was king and England also lost three wickets to such deliveries before the end of day one.

However, after the first hour of day two, the game changed. Bens Stokes and Foakes put on 173 off 324 balls. The question after that was whether England’s first innings bowling method would work again. It did. South Africa were bowled out for 179, all 10 wickets falling to fast-medium bowlers, nine of them to length balls.

It’s perhaps also worth highlighting that despite the low score, South Africa did reach the second new ball in this innings. They then lost their last five wickets to it in barely five overs. That shiny new nut isn’t to be wasted, people.

Going further back, it’s a bit harder to draw firm conclusions from 2020 as three Tests were played at the ground in not much more than three weeks. The stats say that Stuart Broad (22 wickets at 12.09) and Chris Woakes (15 wickets at 15.80) were the most successful bowlers and Ben Stokes also chipped in with five at 14.00. It’s therefore something of a surprise to see that James Anderson only took three at 47.66 – albeit he only played two of the matches.

So on the face of it, it’s a similar story. Jofra Archer’s five wickets at 36.40 seems a fairly nondescript return for a faster bowler, while Dom Bess’s five wickets at 48.00 is significantly worse. But then the touring spinners did actually fare pretty well. Roston Chase took eight wickets at 33.62 for the West Indies across two Tests, while Yasir Shah took eight wickets at 20.62 for Pakistan in their one Test.

The match before that was the fourth Test in the 2019 Ashes, which Australia won by 185 runs. Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were their seamers. Nathan Lyon contributed just two wickets, both in the second innings: Joe Denly for a dentury and then Archer.

Again, the wickets taken by both teams were overwhelmingly bowleds, LBWs or catches by the keeper and in the cordon. One noteworthy exception was Steve Smith who was caught at backward point from a reverse sweep for 211.

All in all, I’d have to say that close catching is likely to be vital this week. You simply do not want to be shelling any nicks. If chances start going down, that’s it, man… Game over, man. Game over.