Run-scoring in county cricket has fallen through the floor, and pitches get shoved to the top of the blame list. As faceless culprits they make for comforting targets: no one gets sacked, everyone gets to be appalled, and the batters who keep getting their front pads blown off can deflect from their own deficiencies.
Partly as a consequence, a kind of omertà hangs over the groundsmen fraternity. They plough away in the shadows, their expertise rarely acknowledged, their dedication taken for granted, and only when they produce an iffy deck – and what makes for a bad pitch is a point of debate in itself – do they become the story.