Something not quite right with this pitch... ©AFP
Test cricket locks you into its narrative early. Here are the XIs. These are the conditions. Get on with it. So it was at Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on Wednesday, the first day of West Indies' men's series against South Africa.
Rain ended play after 15 overs. Television being the cumbersome medium that it is, something had to fill all those suddenly empty hours. Up popped footage of the Test against England in Grenada in March 2022.
There was grass! There was bounce! There was a reason for the bowlers to keep running in! Immediately the insult to Test cricket that is the Queen's Park Oval pitch prepared for this match was exposed. There was no grass, no bounce, almost no point in trying to take wickets or bat with enterprise, and apparently no thought given to the smattering of spectators and the television audience beyond.
The surface was the diametric opposite of another insult to Test cricket, the Newlands pitch served up for the match against India in January. That match was over inside an hour after lunch on the second day, and the pitch was generously deemed "
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