Former Australian Spinner Brad Hogg says the low-scoring matches in the T20 World Cup have been good, creating a more even tournament.
The World Cup hosted in the USA and West Indies has sparked discussion, particularly in New York which has seen several low-scoring affairs and subject to complaints about its quality.
The low-scoring matches have seen the bowlers come into play while simultaneously mitigating the impact batsmen can have on the game – making it difficult to notch up high scores seen in the recent IPL.
Hogg has come to the defence of the New York pitch, stating it promoted fielders and bowlers’ involvement in the game.
“You’ve got to remember that they’ve got that up within a couple of months because the council over there were causing a few issues,” Hogg told SportFM.
“The good thing about it is it’s brought fielding and running between the wickets back into the fray.
“I haven’t minded it for that part of it, but it’s also done its job and created a little bit of excitement with cricket in the USA and in that area, which is very important.”
Hogg has also highlighted the positives of these pitches, stating they produced a more even, unpredictable tournament between the nations.
“There’s still a little bit of turn there but it looked as though the batsmen could play a little bit freely,” he said.
“When you get into the Super eights and the semi-finals and you’re playing on those wickets that we’ve seen already where there’s turn, low bounce, which is a little bit of a problem.”
“We’ve just come off an IPL where they were scoring at 10 runs and over, then all of a sudden we’ve got bowlers having more dominance in this tournament,” he said.
“The low-scoring affairs have been good and the wickets have been good to create more even competition between the associate nations and the test-playing nations.”
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