Who is to blame for Old Trafford?

I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it on TV. So what to make of the abandonment on Tuesday due to waterlogged run-ups? Who was to blame, the authorities at Old Trafford, or the teams and umpires? Reading the reports in the press, it is hard to say for sure, blame being apportioned to either one or the other.

For example David Lloyd, a Lancashire man himself, is highly critical of Old Trafford and Lancashire, pointing to the general state of the facilities as well as the playing surface:

The venue was basically a building site with restricted access to the public and it was totally unsatisfactory for the 20,000 people who turned up. An international game should be an event, but with all of that building work going on, Old Trafford simply couldn’t cope.¹

Paul Collingwood stated that the umpires were forced to make a brave decision but, over at the BBC, Ben Dirs takes the opposite tack in his blog, choosing to criticise the decision to abandon the match rather than ensure some form of entertainment for the crowd:

The brave stance would have been to put the risks to one side, agree to bowl spinners, tell the pacemen to shorten their run-ups. Former Aussie speedster Jeff Thomson reckoned there was nothing wrong with the pitch. Former Aussie batsman Greg Blewett advised them to play in football boots. Shane Warne suggested they bowl from one end. Ridiculous? Try telling that to the 20,000 paying customers.²

I wouldn’t agree with this statement.  Consider football – when a playing surface is unfit, you would not hear suggestions that the match should be played on a short pitch, or just decided by a penalty shoot-out.  The problem for cricket, of course, is that the schedules are so cramped that it is impossible to reschedule matches, or even use reserve days in most cases.

The scheduling is another aspect that has come under scrutiny, with criticism of the ECB for giving Old Trafford both T20 matches despite the infamous Lancashire weather.  The first match was also ruined by rain after 7 balls of England’s reply.  There is also, as pointed out by Lloyd, much building work taking place currently.  So why are international matches being scheduled to take place at the same time?

We can also criticise the ground-staff for failing to ensure that the affected areas were properly covered, particularly with the bowlers take-off areas being so vital to the safety of fast bowlers, let alone their radars.  Then again, it doesn’t help the umpire’s case when the following day a match is played on the same pitch with no problems – Lancashire’s four-day game against Sussex.

It seems to me that the blame must be shared around equally – to the ECB for their scheduling, which is less influenced by putting on a decent game of cricket than it is by who will pay the most, to Old Trafford for the failings of the ground-staff and the state of the ground in general, and to the umpires and captains (although less so) as much for their shoulder shrugging “what can you do” attitude as for the decision itself.

As always the blameless party, the 20,000 spectators who made a wasted journey, were the ones who really lost out.