It was a remark by Mark Ramprakash, England’s former batting coach, after the recent Test series defeat by West Indies which pushed one first-class groundsman over the edge.

Ramprakash had just been asked why his batters had underperformed so woefully, and responded by assigning a chunk of the blame to the “inexplicable” preparation of county pitches. “I don’t know how groundsmen can possibly justify the pitches we are playing on at the moment,” the former England player told Sky Sports.

“The Mark Ramprakash comments were some of the worst I’ve ever read,” the groundsman told The Sunday Telegraph, on condition of anonymity. “Those kinds of throwaway comments, [coming] from people as well that you respect in the game …” He tailed off, too furious to finish his sentence. But that groundsman is far from alone. The Sunday Telegraph has spoken to a range of groundsmen on the county circuit, and discovered a growing well of frustration and resentment at being repeatedly made scapegoats when the cricket falls below expectations.

Last season, when wickets fell at a clatter and only a handful of batsmen reached 1,000 runs for the County Championship season, groundsmen were blamed for creating conditions which rewarded gentle seam bowling and reduced opening batsmen to nervous wrecks. This year batsmen have plundered runs by the bucketful – as was the England and Wales Cricket Board’s intention – and players such as Northamptonshire captain Alex Wakely are lambasting “a really poor cricket wicket” on which “you can’t enjoy games”.