SA bemoan 'sad state' of Newlands 'slug-fest': 'All ethics and values of Test cricket go out the window'

The Newlands pitch required "more luck than skill" to score runs on according to South Africa's Test coach Shukri Conrad, who suggested the surface did a disservice to the game.

"You only need to look at the scores, you only need to look at the way they chased a little target of 80 to know [whether the wicket was good or not]. It's a sad state when you need more luck than skill to survive in a Test match," Conrad said, after India's seven-wicket win on Thursday. "All the ethics and values of Test cricket go out the window. This was just a slug-fest, a slogathon and [about] whoever was luckier - but take nothing away from India, they were superb and you ain't going to win many Test matches scoring 50-odd. But it wasn't great. Both the cricket and the wicket."

Even in those circumstances, there was a way. Aiden Markram scored his seventh Test hundred, which is also his third second-innings ton, at a strike rate of over 100 and was, in Conrad's words "phenomenal". More so because he went into the innings on the back of scores of 5 and 2, and half of South Africa's batters were dismissed before they were in the lead. And mostly because Markram was able to play his shots against a bowling attack with India's quality and on a surface with variable bounce.

The cover drive is his signature, and it was there from the first over when he was down on one knee to meet a full Jasprit Bumrah ball. But he was also strong off the back foot and his cuts and drives from that position were equally easy on the eye. Even when he timed his push down the ground off Mukesh Kumar perfectly to reach his half-century, he never looked entirely comfortable, and who could blame him because the next ball kept low.

Two overs later, one reared up off a length and took the leading edge and two overs after that, when he was on 73, another one leapt up and he edged, but KL Rahul put it down. Markram survived to see the next ball seam away and then plundered 20 runs off Prasidh Kumar's first over, including a massive six that sent the ball over the railway stand to be lost on the tracks.

That's how it was. Get beaten. But attack. Get surprised. Then attack. Get lucky. And keep attacking. Because at some point a ball would come with your name on it, as they say, and Markram wanted to make sure he had some runs to his name before it did.

"Ultimately you have to try and find ways to be successful on any surface," he said at the post match press-conference. "You have to remain as positive as you can be, always look to score, and if the odd one goes past your edge, just laugh it off, because there was quite considerable movement. You also need good fortune on a wicket like that."

And that emphasises Conrad's point that the pitch was a lottery which played havoc with batters' mindsets. "With a surface like that, it makes you doubt your technique and makes you doubt how you approach the game and that's where I felt the game was from as early as the first couple of overs of the match."

Markram explained that is exactly what he went through as he tried to contend with the uneven bounce. "It makes it quite challenging when the ball is going up and down. If it's just one of them [up or down], you can try and find a plan to cover that. Sometimes when it is staying low, you don't want to be getting your pads in the way, which means you are more leg-side of the ball, but when it starts bouncing and you are leg-side of the ball, you can nick it," he said. "You just wing it while you are out there, other bowlers feel different and then you go with your gut feel in terms of how to deal with it."

Markram was the only South African batter whose instincts proved successful, as none of his team-mates made more than 15 in the entire Test. Markram had special praise for Kagiso Rabada, though, who spent 39 minutes with him in the second innings and scored two runs in a partnership of 51. "Sometimes innings like that don't get noticed, but they should," Markram said.

It was during that time that India spread the field, to try and get Rabada on strike, and Markram found the going slightly easier. It was with Rabada at the other end that Markram got to his hundred and celebrated with a left-hander's block to dedicate the century to his now-retired opening partner Dean Elgar. While Elgar was animated on the sidelines, in the end Markram did not take much comfort in his triumph over tough conditions. "The hundred would mean a hell of a lot more if we'd won," he said.

But he hopes the rest of South Africa's batters, like David Bedingham, playing in his second Test, and Tristan Stubbs, on debut, know that this is as bad as it could get.

"If you are exposed to those conditions in your first Test series, then it is important to understand it won't get much tougher," Markam said. "That's the positive note for those players. It can make it feel incredibly difficult when you are exposed to it in your first series but you may expect this and then move to venues where it is slightly easier. You'd rather have it that way around than be shocked and caught with your pants down."

Stubbs received an apology from Conrad "for giving him a debut on a wicket like this" but also a message "that it's not going to get any more difficult than this", perhaps not even in Asia.

"When you get to the subcontinent and it spins, you know what you are in for so you are prepared accordingly and that's all we as coaches and players want. When you have a reasonable idea of what to expect, you can prepare accordingly. This was nowhere near any of that."

And so it was back to the analysis of the 22 yards that caused all the trouble, which players and management on both sides seem to have agreed was substandard. It was prepared by a fairly new curator, who has been at Newlands for almost two years but is in his first Test and whom Conrad refused to roast.

"I know Braam [Mong, the groundsman]. Braam is a good guy. Sometimes good guys get things wrong. This doesn't turn Braam into a rubbish groundsman," Conrad said. "You've got to feel for the groundsman, especially down in Cape Town, where we've got wind to contend with and he wants to get it so right that maybe the wicket was a little bit over-prepared. He's got to take it on the chin. That will be my message to Braam."

Conrad also made sure to say there have been no other messages to any of the groundstaff. While South African sides of the past (and some other home teams as well) have been known to "order" surfaces they think will suit them, that ended after the Faf du Plessis-Ottis Gibson combination and Conrad insisted it's not something he does.

"I say just give us a typical wicket that we are going to get here. I don't want to be doctoring wickets," Conrad said. "We've got new batters in international cricket, they need to learn their trade and playing on wickets like this doesn't do it for them. I never did and never will prescribe to groundsmen. Ultimately they've also got jobs."

Mong is not a full-time employee at the Western Province Cricket Association (the cricket union that runs Newlands) and has other work at a company that prepares club and school grounds. The financial malaise at the Cape Town-based union, who were bailed out by Cricket South Africa this summer in order to be able to host this Test and the SA20, means that poor maintenance is obvious everywhere from peeling paint to the pitch.

There are genuine concerns that unless the governance issues at the union are resolved and debts are serviced, Newlands will no longer be a viable candidate for international cricket matches and, given that it has now hosted the shortest Test in history, we may be able to see why.