Last Updated on 4 months by Charbel Coorey
The Manchester pitch is in the spotlight after day one of the England-Sri Lanka Test. The big moment took place in just the 23rd over where a Shoaib Bashir delivery barely got off the ground to pin Dinesh Chandimal LBW for 17. It was a blow for Sri Lanka as Chandimal was looking solid.
A delivery had also kept low in Bashir’s previous over, raising questions of the surface. Wisden has raised the possibility of the Manchester pitch failing ICC pitch regulations, which can result in a poor rating.
According to the ICC regulations for Tests, “it is acceptable for a pitch to offer some degree of turn on the first day of a match, particularly in the sub-continent, though anything more than occasional unevenness of bounce at this stage of the match is not acceptable. It is to be expected that a pitch will turn steadily more as a match progresses, and it is recognised that a greater degree of unevenness of bounce may develop.”
Manchester pitch criticised after uneven bounce on day one of ENG-SL Test
It will be interesting to see how the pitch – which is quite dry – will play for the remainder of Test. The Cricketer’s George Dobell took to X to rightly ask what the reaction would have been had that delivery taken place on day one of a Test in India.
“So, what would the reaction of that Chandimal wicket be had it been an England player on the first morning of a Test in India?” he wrote.
Earlier, Mark Wood almost ripped Kusal Mendis’s thumb off his hand. However, the surface played pretty well afterwards. Milan Rathnayake achieved the highest score by a number nine on debut in a men’s Test, hitting an excellent 72 to propel Sri Lanka to 236.
Here are some thoughts and reactions from fans on the Manchester pitch.
England finished the day 22/0. Openers Dan Lawrence and Ben Duckett got through the four overs largely untroubled, but the latter survived a close call against a Dhananjaya de Silva delivery that spun sharply.
