2 months ago
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‘Short Tests are bad for business’: How MCG carnage could spark change on pitch preparation
Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg says the governing body will consider taking a more direct influence over pitch preparation after the Boxing Day blitz on batters left the sport in danger of another multimillion dollar shortfall.
As the prospect of a third day in cricket’s marquee match hangs in the balance, CA is becoming increasingly wary of the effect heavily truncated Tests are having on the bottom line and have not ruled out radical change in how pitches are produced.
CA lost about $4 million in revenue from the two-day Test in Perth and, with 90,000 expected at the MCG on Sunday, will likely be hit even harder if the Boxing Day Test does not see a third day.
“Simple phrase I’d use is ‘short Tests are bad for business’,” Greenberg said on SEN on Saturday morning. “I can’t be much more blunt than that.”
Though Greenberg will wait until after the Test to pass judgment on the MCG track, he has flagged the idea of CA taking a more interventionist approach to how pitches are produced in this country.
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“That’s something we’ll have to look at at the end of the series because historically, we have taken a hands-off approach on all of our wicket preparation and allowed the staff and conditions in those characteristics to be presented,” Greenberg said.
“It’s hard not to get more involved when you see the impact on the sport, especially commercially. I’m not suggesting I’ll go around talking to ground staff, but we do have to have a careful eye on what our expectations are over the course of a summer.
“Short Tests aren’t good for business.”
Unlike in India, curators in this country are fiercely independent when it comes to their craft, and it would be a drastic shift if head office was to have more of a say.
“History tells you we’ve never done that because we’ve never needed to,” Greenberg said.
“What I’m conscious of is for Australian cricket to continue to evolve – clearly the player are evolving to the point you didn’t see players in tricky conditions any real partnership that dug in and said were going to try and get through the next two hours.
“What we saw was players running down the wicket to try and hit their way out of it.
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“If that’s the modern game, is the wicket preparation and our conditions conducive to getting the best outcomes for our sport. That’s an open question for me and some others.”
MCG head curator Matt Page said emphatically before the game that captains do not have a say in how the pitch is unveiled.
“Absolutely not,” Page said. “We are left to our own devices, which is perfect.”
The carnage on the first day contrasted with the dull pitch used for the 2017 Boxing Day Test when Alastair Cook made a record 244 not out. That pitch was rated “poor” by the International Cricket Council, the first for an Australian venue, sparking a significant change in how MCG Test strips were produced. Eight years later, the conversation has swung a full 180 degrees.
Greenberg said 20 wickets falling in a day was too many.
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“So I would like to see a slightly broader balance between the bat and the ball,” Greenberg said. “I thought yesterday slightly favoured the ball.
“The batters have some ownership in some of that, I don’t think it’s not all around the pitch, but we’ve got some challenges.”
Test greats Stuart Broad, Mark Waugh and Brett Lee were among a host of former players who believed the Boxing Day pitch was too heavily slanted in favour of the bowlers.
“I haven’t seen a pitch move as much as that in a long, long time, it didn’t just have sideways movement, it had extra bounce,” Broad said on Channel Seven.
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