MasterstrokeMatch play and rules
Pitch conditions
How the surface decides the match: grassy pitches help seam, dry ones turn, flat ones make runs, and every Test pitch changes across five days.
Pitch conditions describe how the 22-yard strip will play: how much it will seam, turn, bounce and wear, and therefore which kind of cricketer it favours.
A green top has live grass on it. The ball seams off the surface and carries through, so fast bowlers dominate and batting is hard. A flat track, sometimes called a road, is dry, hard and even; it gives the bowlers nothing and produces big scores. A turner or dust bowl is dry and crumbling, so it grips and turns from early on and spinners win the match. Most surfaces sit between these, and most of them change: a Test pitch that seams on day one will usually flatten by day two and start to crack and wear by day four, when spin and uneven bounce take over. Weather matters too. Cloud and humidity help the ball swing; heat dries the surface; evening dew makes it hard to grip.
Everything a manager decides flows from this reading. The toss, the balance of seamers and spinners in the XI, the batting order and the timing of a declaration are all answers to the question of what the pitch will do next.
In Masterstroke: matches play out on a live field in conditions the ground and the date decide, and in Tests the pitch cracks and wears in front of you.