‘Very incorrect’: McDonald rejects talk of made-to-order MCG pitch

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National coach Andrew McDonald has emphatically denied having any undue influence over the preparation of the Boxing Day Test pitch, and says curators in this country should never be asked to roll out made-to-order Test strips.

As the MCG Test hurtled through four innings inside two days, unsubstantiated rumours swirled around the stadium that this pitch, with its 10 millimetres of grass termed “furry” by Australia’s captain Steve Smith, had been requested by the home side.

Australia coach Andrew McDonald inspects the MCG pitch on Christmas Eve.

McDonald’s rejection of those claims comes a day after Melbourne Cricket Club head curator Matt Page was adamant the home side played no role in the pitch he produced.

Cricket Australia is still waiting for a verdict from the International Cricket Council on the controversial MCG surface, which played host to just the 26th two-day Test in the format’s 148-year history.

Other countries have long accused Australia of doing the same things as the likes of India and England in terms of team requests for the kinds of pitches to play on. But that notion is considered anathema to the Australian team and also to Australia’s curators.

MCG curator Matt Page speaks with Australia coach Andrew McDonald on December 24.

McDonald made it clear on Monday that he and his team do not make demands on the type of pitch that curators should produce. Page said on Sunday that the home side had “absolutely no input”.

“I don’t know where or how that started, I’d like to know if you could give up the person [who] maybe spread that,” McDonald said.

“But our conversations with the groundstaff as always [are], how do you think it’ll play, what do you think it may do? And then we’re able to shape a team in and around that.

“I don’t know how to roll a wicket. I don’t know how to prepare a wicket. Our job is to go out there and solve the problems it presents. So to speculate that we’ve had a say in our wickets over a period of time, I think would be very incorrect.”

MCG curator Matt Page looks on during an Australia nets session on December 24.

McDonald said he was open to CA working more collaboratively with curators on the general issue of pitch production, but no further than that.

“I don’t want to get to a situation if this is where you’re heading where we are asking for specific surfaces and tailor made to what we have at that point in time,” McDonald said.

“I don’t think Australia will ever go there. And I don’t think they’ve ever been there to my knowledge.”

Les Burdett, CA’s pitch advisor for the past 15 years, told this masthead how he counselled the likes of Page, Damian Hough (Adelaide Oval curator) and David Sandurski (the Gabba) to go about their conversations with coaches and captains.

“You need to listen to the coaches and the captains,” Burdett said. “Don’t get involved in a heated conversation. You need to understand their expectations, and then you need to do the right thing by cricket.”

As reported by this masthead, the second two-day Test of the Ashes summer will cost Australian cricket stakeholders about $25 million and has upset broadcasters, who budget for an average of four days per Test to break even.

McDonald threw his support behind the embattled Page, saying his batters needed to shoulder some of the blame for the summer’s marquee Test lasting just two days.

“How did I think it’d play? I thought we would have got to day three, day four, but the cricket, mixed in with the surface didn’t allow that,” McDonald said. “And we’ve got to take some accountability in the way that we play as well. So it’s not wholly and solely the surface’s fault.”

Formerly the coach of Victoria, McDonald has an intimate appreciation of the problems Page has overcome in turning the MCG pitch from a bowler’s graveyard in 2017 to one that had received top ratings from the ICC for each of the past three Tests.

“He does an outstanding job, and it’s always sort of the perspective that I always use is, we have bad Test matches as well,” McDonald said.

“Sometimes these things can happen, but we support him in what he’s done and really proud of the evolution of the MCG. So hopefully people can have some context around where he’s been on the journey and support him for the next challenge that he faces.”