ICC opt for leaving pitches uncovered in order to provide something extra for the bowlers.
Rival skippers Steven Smith and Virat Kohli spoke about the inability of their respective teams to take 20 wickets in each of the four Commonwealth Bank Test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy but because their problems were different, their responses at the media interaction on Saturday were tellingly contrasting.
Kohli's primary lament was about lacking bowlers who could take 20 wickets in overseas conditions. He also spoke of the need for bowlers to be able to land six deliveries on the same spot, have the vision to set batsmen up and have the composure and desire as well as the ability to bowl with the same intensity through the day and on all days of a Test match.
The Indian bowlers' problems in overseas conditions have been fairly well documented but it was expected that India could compete because they backed a pack of men who could crank up speeds in excess of 140kmph consistently. It was shown in the series that it was not about pace but about bowling smart.
A simple comparison of the bowling averages, economy rates and strikes rates of the two teams will reveal that the Indian attack lacked the ability to sustain pressure on the home batsmen besides seeming purposeless and directionless, straying in line and length when the obvious thing to do would be to challenge the Australians with accuracy.
In the two Tests each that Kohli and the now-retired Mahendra Singh Dhoni led India, they were frustrated at not being able to set fields since their bowlers lacked the discipline to peg away consistently. As Kohli pointed out on Saturday, the bowlers got to their wits end soon and appeared to lack the ability rarely to think batsmen out.
It is not as if India's bowling woes will disappear in a hurry, given the fact that the teams most experienced bowler, Ishant Sharma, continues to do little more than answer the captains call to run in hard and bowl even at the end of a day. He frustrates the Indian skipper with his inability to evolve as a leader of the pack despite more than 60 Tests against his name.
On the contrary, disappointed that his team could not bowl out India on the final day of the series on Saturday, Smith admitted that it was tough for Australia to take 20 wickets in all Tests. The wickets haven't broken up quite as much as we thought they might have. It has been tough, he said, having to settle for successive draws in Melbourne and Sydney.
It came as a shock to those who have seen successive Australian Test teams flatten oppositions on tracks that had some juice in them. Since when have the Australians, them of great skill and confidence, them with the mean streak when bowling, started depending on pitches to break up and to have variable bounce to dismiss a team in a day?
That is a telling comment on modern bowlers and certainly provides food for thought. Clearly, cricket around the world has come to a stage where bowlers need some assistance from pitches to be able to take 20 wickets in a Test match. It was quite rare to see bowlers set up batsmen for dismissals like Mitchell Johnson did against Cheteshwar Pujara in Melbourne.
With superior bats and greater intent, batsmen are able to defeat the best of bowlers on flat decks. No matter what pace they bowl with, if they do not get the cricket ball to swing conventional or reverse they are left to wait for complacency to creep into a batsman's countenance so that an unforced error can lead to his downfall.
Is there a simple solution to the conundrum that men like Dale Steyn and Mitchell Johnson overcome with their special gifts but the lesser bowlers find a stumbling block? Perhaps not. But the best cricket brains around the world the ICC's Cricket Committee, led by Anil Kumble, can surely see if uncovered pitches can be a step in that direction.
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