Much of the talk on day one of the third Test between New Zealand and England in Auckland was about drop-in pitches and whether or not they are conducive for producing a result in a series that has been notable only for lacking one.
Drop-in decks are rightly regarded with a great deal of suspicion and cynicism - after all, it is a halfway house, somewhere between an artificial surface and a natural strip of nurtured grass. Is it even right or acceptable to use such wickets for Test cricket, many asked.
"The seamers can fill their boots on the opening day before it becomes a road" was one verdict, while England captain Alastair Cook said at the coin toss, "it looks to be a good wicket but if it's going to do anything it will be today". It did not do anything.
But the third successive placid pitch of the series was not the primary issue to arouse the ire of Cowers, who had long since accepted that a chief executives' paradise would be rolled out for five days of Auckland sunshine.
The real issue was why a Test match was being played - not for the first time, we should hasten to add - at a rugby ground.
A rugby ground is generally entirely unsuitable for cricket at the best of times, but the usual excuse of 'who doesn't want to see millions of sixes at a Twenty20?' simply doesn't wash in a deciding rubber of a Test series.
Eden Park has staged 47 matches since 1930 and this may well end up being its last. The reason?
Its straight boundaries fall well short of the 70m 'minimum distance' from the centre of the pitch, but mystifyingly, ICC regulations allow any ground approved for international cricket before 2007 cricket to be exempt from this rule.
The straight boundaries in question do not creep in just short at 69m, but help to resemble an embarrassingly skewed cricket ground in which the slip cordon is within ear shot of fans in the first five rows.
While it is always fun to see bowlers steam in quite literally from near the sightscreen, the novelty of seeing a batsman pick up a six for a mistimed checked drive quickly becomes intensely frustrating, for spectators and the fielding side alike.
One man who would have been more annoyed than most about the cheap boundaries on offer is the injured Kevin Pietersen, ruled out of the third Test, who could have picked up a maximum with a front foot prod, even with a dodgy knee.
Quite absurdly, Eden Park hosted a rugby match as recently as Saturday, and the ground has had to use drop-in wickets for that reason for more than a decade. The fact that it has become a grudgingly accepted state of affairs in New Zealand cricket for this long is frankly ridiculous.
The argument cannot have been made, either, that the venue attracts spectators. The last Test match at the Basin Reserve in Wellington saw a packed ground full of fans eager to sit on the lush, grassy banks with a drink and a picnic hamper; but not at a concrete rugby stadium with little atmosphere, as the desperately paltry capacity on day one demonstrated.
The problems with the ground as a cricketing venue go way beyond the vast, empty stands, tiny straight boundaries and drop-in pitches, however.
Eden Park lacks a proper scoreboard designed to accommodate cricket matches, a natural wicket or any form of a square in the middle. Cowers lauded the wonderfully convivial, party-like atmosphere of the Basin Reserve, and it is sad that two fantastically intimate and cherished cricket grounds have been followed by such a hulking and wholly inappropriate rugby stadium for the third match of the series.
New Zealand had an opportunity to clinch just their second home Test series victory over England - the other one came in 1983-84 - but instead, after two draws, the hosts served up a flat, lifeless deck in a virtually empty stadium. It would be a crying shame if the entire series ends as a stalemate.
New Zealand have beaten England only once in 15 attempts at Eden Park, so it cannot be argued that the venue or the wicket favours the hosts. But one thing that is not in dispute is that neither the ground nor the pitch were conducive for a good game of cricket.