Andy Flower calls South Africa v Afghanistan T20 World Cup semi-final pitch ‘dangerous’

Former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower on Thursday labeled the pitch for the T20 World Cup semi-final in Trinidad as “dangerous” after Afghanistan suffered a nine-wicket defeat to South Africa. On a pitch Difficult with variable bounce and exaggerated seam movements, Afghanistan conceded for just 56 in 11.5 overs for their lowest T20I total as South Africa reached their first World Cup final. Although Flower supported Afghanistan’s decision to bat after winning the toss, he said it was impossible for batsmen to judge the rebound on the surface.

“You cannot blame Afghanistan for doing what it did immediately. They had an excellent record of batting first and defending second with a very good varied attack,” Flower told ESPNCricinfo.

“But batting first was a very difficult task. You didn’t know what a good score would be and they were amazed.” “A few balls flew around, at about shoulder, neck and chin height, of the quick South Africans and one of them flew over Quinton de Kock – the goalkeeper’s head and gloves for four dismissals. I was pleased that no one was hurt,” Flower said.

Flower, who coaches the Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL, said images of the pitch revealed cracks and blocks that produced a “huge variation in bounce”.

“You saw some interesting visual images from above the square and some commentators mentioned that this was a brand new field. Maybe they could have used a field that had been used before,” he said.

“These photos showed that crazy paving effect and that those blocks and cracks produced this wild variation in bounce. As a batsman, you are trying to predict where the ball will be. You want to find it somewhere near the middle of the bat at least.” “(But) in this field, it was almost impossible to do that consistently. I thought it was a bit dangerous,” said the former England manager.

Former Australia all-rounder Tom Moody said batting on that pitch at Brian Lara Stadium was “a very difficult challenge to combat”.

“I don’t think you’d want to see that in any game, to be honest with you. You want a fair contest between bat and ball and I’m not advocating that we need surfaces that need more than 200 runs,” he said.

“But you need consistent bounce – that’s the most important thing – (and) any batter would throw up their hands and say, that’s the most important thing.” “If you have a ball that is hitting the tip of the bat or one that you feel like you are going to hit with your gloves at the same length, that is a very difficult challenge to combat,” he added.

Moody observed that the presence of thick grass near the cracks in the field caused invariable jumps in the surface.

“See, this kind of crazy paving, if I could put it that way, where a lot of dense grass was built up around these cracks – you could say that’s what promoted the inconsistency of the jump,” he said.

“It will be something they reflect on, if they aren’t already reflecting and thinking, well, we got it wrong,” Moody added.

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