Cricket: It's pitch poor if you ask Mills

SOAKING IT UP: Phil Stoyanoff's pitch will remain untested in ODIs until India arrive on January 19.

THE COLLECTIVE groans and boos from the smattering of fans at McLean Park, Napier, yesterday was resounding when it discovered the second one-day international cricket match had been abandoned without a ball bowled.
The sun was out, the ground staff had taken the covers off and the super sopper was doing its rounds about 4pm but the cheers and claps were in vain in the second ODI between the Black Caps and the West Indies.
Parts of the outfield were deemed unsafe and dangerous to play on and New Zealand Cricket offered a full refund to ticket holders.
The Harris Stand side of the outfield was most affected with two puddles visible.
``We were all a little frustrated,'' Black Caps coach Mike Hesson said, revealing they had noticed the park was already ``pretty soft'' and saturated underfoot when they turned up for training on Saturday.
``There wasn't a heck of a lot but it is lying out there,'' said Hesson whose troops are 1-0 down in the five-match series before the third one in Queenstown on New Year's Day.
However, it remains to be seen if Queenstown will persevere, considering the NZ
MetService forecast for the resort area is also ``occasional showers with north-easterlies''.
Hesson revealed Central Districts Stag Adam Milne was in the mix but whether he bowls
in Queenstown would depend on the pitch's pace and bounce.
Nevertheless, the McLean Park pitch had already come under scrutiny on Saturday
from veteran opening seamer Kyle Mills at a press conference.
``I've been looking for assistance from this pitch for 12 years and I'm struggling to find it,'' the veteran seamer said on the eve of the second ODI against the West Indies.
World-class head groundsman Phil Stoyanoff's 20m long x 3m wide strip of man-
made prime real estate has drawn considerable attention over the years, albeit some of it in a humorous vein.
In the summer of 2008-09 a minute outbreak of fungal growth in the outfield caused a
fair bit of consternation when a scribe from outside the region suggested the match could be moved because of it.
Inarguably and understandably most of the scrutiny comes from a particular section of the 22 players who have earned the privilege to walk out on to the Napier venue.
Okay, the wicket here has been labelled a driveway, motorway or a tarmac over the
years because, traditionally, its benign batting qualities have had a reputation of spawning close to 700-plus runs a game. It is not too far off the strip in Adelaide, believed to be the world's flattest.
Everything being equal, though, it isn't crazy to suggest that a compact McLean Park is
capable of yielding a 1000-run affair if batsmen-savvy teams such as India find traction, too.
McLean Park is where international and domestic batsmen lacking in confidence and form have found timely traction to boost their careers.
Who can forget Chris Gayle turning it into his backyard in 2009 in one of the more memorable moments of assault and battery of bowlers.
On the flip side, many dexterous batsmen have been caught on the hop here, dismissed cheaply because of their inability to deal with deliveries packing considerable bounce.
Needless to say, Mills is perfectly justified in pointing out the wicket has been inhospitable towards spittle shiners who, for more than a decade, have broken their backs and worn out their knee ligaments with little luck to put their teams on the front foot.
Ironically, Stoyanoff is a former first-class seamer who played for the Wellington Firebirds.
I am among those critics who have questioned the benefits of preparing pitches that offer little or no purchase to frustrated bowlers.
Is it not equally capable of giving players, in particular Black Caps, a false sense of fulfilment in their batting prowess?
Is that why most of them struggle abroad on pitches that offer bowlers a modicum of traction?
Watching New Zealand's only world-class test batsman, Ross Taylor, his likely successor, Kane Williamson, and pretender to the throne Jesse Ryder batting in the nets
at the same time in Nelson Park on Saturday spoke volumes of where the Black Caps are,
although one has to ask which grounds in the country are actually bowler friendly.
Okay, the Calypso boys are a spent force in the test arena and hardly a yardstick of satisfaction, but the Caps' 2-0 test series victory is the ideal fillip before world No 1 ODI team India arrive.
With New Zealand and Australia hosting the 2015 ODI World Cup it is understandable if Hesson and captain Brendon McCullum are preoccupied with making a statement in limited-overs cricket amid public expectation.
Consequently, if the opening ODI two-wicket loss in Auckland is anything to go by then the New Zealand top order do quickly need a McLean Park fix.
In fairness to Stoyanoff, in the past few summers he has prepared strips that have presented a greenish tinge to salivating seamers on a win-toss-bat-first scenario.
``It's very important as a bowling unit to try to get it straight, with the short boundaries square, so your plans adjust slightly,'' Mills said, outlining his bowlers' strategy at McLean Park.
In fact, he was gung-ho enough (if he had his way) to bowl first if New Zealand had won the toss in the belief that the Black Caps are adept at chasing down totals.
It's even more unlikely for spinners to find much purchase here, although I hasten to add
not long ago veteran Daniel Vettori and Jeetan Patel took a lion's share of wickets between them in a test match against the West Indies. Rain cruelly robbed them of imminent victory.
In December 2009, rain again prevailed here against Pakistan, touring captain Muhammad Yousuf said: ``It's the best bowling [from Danish Kaneria] I've seen after a long time because there was no help for spinners there.''
Stoyanoff's blunt prematch forecast was that a result was imminent because neither side were adept at batting.
Said Vettori after that drawn third and final test: ``You still come back to not wanting the pitch to be at its best on the fourth or fifth day _ and that was pretty much the case.''
What yesterday's pitch would have offered we'll never know, because who is to say the conditions against India on Sunday, January 19, will be the same.
T20 world champs Windies will also rue not playing here before Napier hosts the World Cup.