Lehmann yearns for variety in domestic pitches

As he ponders changes to Australia’s badly malfunctioning top order, coach Darren Lehmann has admitted that increasingly homogenised domestic pitches – and drop-in wickets at multipurpose stadiums – have played a role in stunting the adaptability of batsmen.

When Lehmann and his contemporaries were learning their trade, each major venue had a pitch of unique character, from the bounce of Perth to the seam of Brisbane to Adelaide’s something-for-everyone, Sydney’s spin and Melbourne’s variable bounce. However the contrasts have diminished in recent years, not helped by the installation of drop-in pitches at the MCG, the Adelaide Oval and, soon, Perth’s new stadium.

Another factor over time had been the preparation of increasingly friendly pitches for seam bowlers to aid each state’s bid for the Sheffield Shield, followed by a reverse directive from the team performance manager Pat Howard for flatter surfaces. While the number of runs scored in Australian first-class competition has risen, batsmen are clearly not facing the same challenges that so confounded them in Kandy and Galle.

“I think we have said for a while that we would like the Shield wickets to go back a little bit in time where they are all different,” Lehmann said. “You had Perth which was grassy and bouncy and went through and swung, and Brisbane seamed and Adelaide reversed and spun and Sydney spun from day one.

“All those things we would love to see happen, but the problem we’ve got now is we’ve got drop-ins at a couple of grounds, so it’s hard to do. You would love that to be the case but you are living in a different world and so it’s a bit harder. In terms of Test wickets, whatever we get we’ll trust the curators to …

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