Every cricket fan got confused during the pitch report of any cricket match. Because the experts always blank our minds with technical phrases like flat wicket, slow wicket, and two paced wicket. Even during match time, the commentators always discuss the pitch. Meanwhile, we mostly listen to a phrase called two paced wicket while talking about pitch conditions. It’s pretty standard for experts to use such types of words. However, a general cricket fan has always doubted this two paced wicket concept. So in this article, I will demonstrate two paced wicket with two best examples.
What Is Two Paced Wicket In Cricket?
Generally, the batsman finds it very difficult to bat once in a while as we watch the match. If one ball comes straight onto the bat, the other ball comes late. Commentators then say that the pitch is two paced as the batsman fails to predict the pace of the ball. So the name itself is Two Paced Wicket. It means the speed of the pitch is two kinds. You may be confused about the speed of the pitch. Let me explain with a simple example.
Example For Two Paced Wicket
Suppose a batter is batting on a cement track. Now a bowler craves to release the ball at a speed of 100 kmph. Basically, the ball loses some speed on the 22 yards when it reaches the batsman. But in this case, the ball tends to lose a meager amount of speed. It means that the ball comes to the batsman at 90 kmph after bouncing on the pitch because the cement track is solid. Hard to break.
The molecules on the upper layer of the pitch are bound together firmly. Hence the cement track does not observe more speed when something bounced on it. So the ball does not lose much pace after pitch on it. A batsman always feels pace and bounce when they are playing on such firm tracks.
But if a batter faces a ball with the same speed on a soil pitch, it will be like 70 kmph when it reaches him. It means that the ball loses most of its speed after bouncing on the soil pitch. Because the soil ground has a higher brittleness, the top layer breaks slightly when the ball lands on it and observes the speed of the ball. So the batsman feels the ball stopping a little bit and comes on to the bat. Generally, we state that the ball is gripping on the surface. If you want, you can also try it once and see the difference.
So here, in both cases, the bowler released the ball with the same speed. But the pace of the ball changed due to the pitch played by the batsman. Imagine for a second what it would be like to combine this cement track and soil track to make a separate track and a batsman playing on it. If the ball pitches on an area with a lot of cement on this track, it bounces well and reaches onto the bat very nicely.
On the other hand, if the ball pitches where the soil area is high, it falls slowly on the bat. But the speed of the ball thrown by the bowler is the same. Now a batter won’t swing the bat with the same speed for these two balls. Because when a batter plays the second ball, he can not time it properly. Even the batter picks the bowler variation from his hand still feels it challenging to find timing in his shots.
So in cricket, whenever a pitch behaves in two tones, it is called a two paced wicket. When a batter is batting on such pitch, one ball falls on the bat, and the other does not. Simply, a two paced wicket is equaled to combinations of dusty pitch and flat pitch.
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Why Batting Is Difficult On Two Paced Wicket
You already understand how difficult it is to bat on this two paced wicket. Imagine, if a bowler like Bravo comes and bowls on the same two paced wicket, the batsman will struggle more to bat. It is difficult to predict whether the speed of the ball after the bounces on the pitch when the regular pace bowler bowls. If Bravo, who has mastered change of pace, comes and bowls, there will be no timing in the shots played by the batsman.
The best example is that sometimes batters failed to play the shots, and the ball took the leading edge of the bat and was caught by the fielders. It means that the shot is played early before the ball arrives, which hits the edge of the bat. Therefore the batsman failed to predict the pace of the ball.
However, to bat on such a two paced wicket, one has to play straight bat shots so that the ball goes over the bowler’s head instead of swinging the bat horizontally. It means you have to play shots pointing your bat pace towards the bowler. When a batter play like that, the risk is reduced. So, it isn’t elementary to bat on this two paced wicket. Only a highly skilled batsman times his shots correctly because he can adjust the pace of the pitch. Then it feels like that one batsman is batting on a different pitch.