A doctored pitch refers to the intentional preparation of a cricket pitch to gain a competitive advantage of the home team. This intentional preparation is the creation of the cricket surface that favors the strike bowler of the home team or by impairing a weakness on the batting surface of the visiting team. Although the practice is common and considered legal, as long as it is within reason, it is being used negatively creating conflicts amongst the teams.
Causes of Doctored Pitch
Doctored pitch is nothing new to the sport. If the match takes place in a home court, it is the club’s interest to make use of all the advantages available for their own team to succeed. With all the promotions that a match receives, the club would use a large amount of money to make sure that the cricket playing area is at its utmost condition. But, if the home court makes obvious doctored pitch by ensuring that the visiting team’s area is not at par with the playing area of the home court, then it can lead to heavier damage.Another common cause for doctored pitch is the pitch-fixing. It is a deliberately altered nature of the pitching method that aims to produce favorable results to the home team. The match pitch-fixing is arranged to guarantee certain outcomes of the game.
Issues Related to Doctored Pitch
There were a number of relevant issues surrounding doctored pitch. In fact, the sport had been recently involved in a cricket pitch-fixing and betting scandal. In 2018, Al Jazeera made a documentary claiming that there was a pitch-fixing in some of its matches. The news stated that during a final test match between England and India in Galle International Stadium, there were pitch-fixing offenses. The International Cricket Council (ICC) criticized the network that the documentary lacks conclusive evidence. But, around May 2018, the curator for the Galle International Stadium was discovered to be involved in the doctoring of pitches to manipulate match outcomes. There was camera footage exposing the curator of being involved in the scandal. With this issue exposed, the ICC led an investigation to address the scandal.There have been several other problems relating to doctored pitch, but the ICC also argues that there is no pitch manipulation during matches until there is definitive evidence.