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The MCG curator says the pitch will have an even covering of grass, offer value for the batters’ shots and won’t help spinners.
MCG pitches have changed in the last seven years.
Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) curator Matt Page has ruled out spinners playing a big role in the Boxing Day Test of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy between Australia and India. He said the pitch would resemble recent Test matches, with an even grass covering.
Until a few years ago, the MCG became infamous for offering flat pitches which resulted in mundane draws. Things started to change after the Boxing Day Test of the 2017 Ashes which saw three innings, only 24 wickets, and Alastair Cook scoring an unbeaten 244.
“Spinners? Oh, it doesn’t really break up and spin here,” Page told media on Monday. “If you look at our long-format games over the last four or five years, they’ve been more seam-friendly than spin-friendly. So I don’t see that changing here. We haven’t altered our pitches because of the balls. Basically, as I said, we sat down seven years ago after 2017 and discussed where we wanted to go as an organization and what we wanted to be renowned for—producing Test matches that provide a thrilling contest.”
“We aim to give bowlers opportunities at various points in the game while also giving batters a chance if they play well. So we experimented with our grass levels, compaction, and moisture, which took about three years to fine-tune. Over the last two or three years, we’ve been consistent in what we’ve rolled out, leaving a bit more grass on the pitches than we used to. It’s provided thrilling contests, and that’s what we want to do.”
He added that the pitch would help seamers with the new ball and get more value to the batters as the red cherry softens.
“Seven years ago, we were quite flat,” Page added. “We sat down as an organization and decided we wanted to create more exciting contests and Test matches. So we leave more grass on the pitches now. That brings the bowlers into play more, but they’re still good for batting once the new ball softens. We’ve been running at six millimeters the last couple of years. We’ll monitor that as we go, but we’ve been really happy with the results recently. So for us, it’s a rinse-and-repeat job.”
India won the last Test here in 2020 by eight wickets. The visitors played three seamers and two spinners — Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin — who combined to take eight wickets across both innings as well.
- Location :
Melbourne, Australia
