You know that something has gone wrong when the man in charge of the cricket pitch is giving a post-match press conference. Australian pitches are celebrities in their own right, each with a distinct perceived personality. Perth – gasoline, bounce. Sydney – intrigue, spin. Adelaide – graft, a late finale. Like any possessor of fame who has been around long enough, some trade on past glories that no longer apply, but what those ideas mean to the people repeating them is worth more than the truth itself.
Aptly, these celebrities have agents, representatives, fluffers, heading to media appearances before each Test to prognosticate. Where the English grass gaffers are still called groundsmen, clomping around in gumboots yelling at interlopers to get off their giant lawn, the Australians are curators, artfully synthesising the elements of sun and rain and dew and morning mist into something tangible. Their pre-match appearances are oracular, reading the grass clippings like Babylonians did the heavens to say what might happen, to give the mood of the soil, to press one ear to the ground and tell you whether she be restless or still.
