The MCG pitch, a two-day Ashes Test, millions of dollars lost and a curator in a ‘state of shock’
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Tim Spiers
The MCG groundsman has explained why he left too much grass on the strip for the Boxing Day Test as the financial implications become clear
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The guilty man sheepishly looks down at the ground, arms folded behind his back. His appearance is a little unkempt, with thick stubble and a furrowed brow. He probably didn’t sleep much last night.
He is here to own up to what he has done. Flanked by his representative, who is clean shaven and wearing an expensive suit, the man occasionally and nervously glances up at the intimidating gaggle of cameras, microphones and journalists.
The sharp-suited man begins the press conference. “We thought we’d jump on the front foot this morning and address the media and, obviously, the public.”
What on earth has his client done? What heinous crime could he have committed? Well, he left three extra millimetres of grass on a cricket pitch. A mistake that cost millions of dollars.
Welcome to one of sport’s strangest crimes.
MCG head curator Matt Page speaks to a match official during the second and final day of the fourth Ashes Test (Martin Keep/AFP via Getty Images)
“We’re disappointed and we’ll move on… we’ll respond quickly.”
Just to clarify from the get-go, we’re talking about lawnmowing here. Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) CEO Stuart Fox addressed the media before handing over to the guilty man, Matt Page. Also known as the man on the grassy knoll wicket, who is head curator — that’s groundsman in English — at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Or, to give him his full title, the MCC’s Executive Manager of Turf.
“We do understand the impact this has had, particularly, on the fans,” Fox adds in what, 30 seconds in, is already one of the more surreal press conferences you could ever attend, and all held in the shadow of the coliseum that is the MCG.
“Quite obviously…this pitch has clearly favoured the bowlers and hasn’t given the batters a good opportunity to get set.”
Before we get to Page’s explanation, some context.
Test matches are supposed to last up to a maximum of five days. But Australia versus England in the fourth Ashes Test, played from Boxing Day at the world-famous MCG, the 11th biggest sports stadium in the world, lasted only two before the tourists secured their first win on Australian soil since 2011.
For a Test to finish so quickly is extremely rare in cricket and the general consensus was the wicket was too difficult to bat on, owing to there being too much grass on it — making the ball move around much more than it would on an average wicket.
Groundsman Page left 10 millimetres of grass cover on the pitch — three millimetres more than for Australia’s Boxing Day Test against India last year, a game which lasted five days — amid unusual weather conditions in the buildup to the match. On day one, temperatures in Melbourne were around 14C. They were to rise to around 21C on day two.
But, if he had left the grass too short with temperatures due to soar to 28C on day three and 33C on day four, the baked, dry pitch could have flattened out, becoming lifeless for the bowlers and favouring the batters too heavily.
Unfortunately for Page, the carnage all happened on the first two days, generating incredible statistics:
At only 852 deliveries, it was the 10th shortest Test match of all time.
Australia were dismissed twice in 79.5 overs, the shortest they have lasted in a Test match when bowled out twice since Sir Don Bradman’s debut in 1929.
The data analysts CricViz gave an overall PitchViz difficulty rating of 8.9 (out of 10), the highest for any Test match in Australia in the ball-tracking era (since 2006).
No batter from either team reached an individual score of 50 for the first time in a Test match in Australia since 1932.
Twenty wickets fell on day one, meaning this was only the ninth Test in history when the third innings of the match began on day one.
England were dismissed in 29.5 overs first-time round, their sixth shortest first innings ever.
Jubilant England fans in Australia didn’t seem to care how long the match lasted as they drank and sang their way long into the Melbourne night.
However, for all the quirkiness of grass lengths, there are serious matters of financial and sporting integrity to consider.
Marnus Labuschagne drops his bat having been struck on the glove by a delivery from Ben Stokes (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
More than 94,000 people attended day one, a record cricket crowd at the stadium but also an all-time record for a day of Test cricket, followed by 92,045 on the second and final day.
Day three was due to be a sell-out, meaning more than 90,000 again depending how many pre-paid members turned up, meaning lost revenue running into millions of dollars. With the cheapest tickets costing around A$40 (£20; $27), that’s a bare minimum of $3.6million. But with plenty of tickets costing far more than the lowest price tier — plus expensive hospitality areas, merchandise, food and drink — the bill soars.
Early estimates from Cricket Australia, reeling from the first Test in Perth having finished in two days, are that the early finish in Melbourne will cost the organisation around A$10m in lost revenue. With the four Tests to date having amounted to 13 days’ cricket, this is proving a damaging series.
The MCG website stated that day three tickets would be refunded immediately, including transaction fees, but that was no consolation for ticket holders who had not been to days one or two for an event that is on many people’s sporting bucket list. Some had travelled 10,000 miles to be there.
Then there are the broadcasters who missed out on coverage, and staff from a number of sectors not being paid.
The second day of the MCG Test was sold out, as day three would have been (Martin Keep/AFP via Getty Images)
The guy whose decision it was to leave 10 millimetres of grass on a cricket wicket didn’t exactly come out fighting — or should that be mowing? — as he gave his remorseful explanation to a ravenous media on Sunday morning.
“We’ll grow from it,” Page said, without a hint of irony, during a press conference about grass lengths that lasted almost 15 minutes. “We’ve gone in with 10 millimetres…I guess our issues here with deterioration in pitches getting very flat has been well documented. We’re very conscious of that.
“We left it longer because we knew we were going to get weather at the back end (of the match) that we knew we needed our grass at. It’s favoured the bowlers too much day one, day two. If that doesn’t happen then we set ourselves up really good for day three, day four.
“I was in a state of shock after the first day, I’ve never been involved in a Test match like that and hopefully never will be again. It was a rollercoaster ride.”
Matt Page, left, speaks to Australia’s stand-in captain Steve Smith on the pitch on Christmas Day (William West/AFP via Getty Images)
Page could have passed for a football manager who had just seen his team let a two-goal lead slip at home to Crystal Palace when he added: “We’ll learn from this, we’ll get better from it, as we have done over the last seven years, as we have with every setback we’ve faced.
“I have no doubt we’ll come back bigger, better and stronger than we have done.”
The vast MCG has an agreement with Cricket Australia to host the Boxing Day Test until 2031. There will be another Ashes Test in 2029, and a day-night game between Australia and England in March 2027 to mark the 150th anniversary of the first ever Test match, played on the same venue.
Page, who deserves credit for fronting up after so much criticism — ex-England captain Michael Vaughan, for example, labelled the pitch “a joke” — was hired to make the MCG pitch more entertaining. It had been too flat. There was a bore draw here between these sides in the 2017 Boxing Day Ashes Test, when only 24 wickets fell across the game’s five days. A lack of drama can have a similar effect in keeping fans away.
This one may have been too spicy, but there is another school of thought.
Sure, it was a difficult pitch to play on, but it was a strip that batters employing traditional batting techniques may not have found quite as tricky to navigate. Ultra-aggressive modern players are far more minded to hit their way out of trouble on moving surfaces, a tactic that comes loaded with risk. Players in previous eras might have been more willing to grit their teeth and grind out a means of survival.
Page was asked if he felt “let down by the batters”. That prompted a grin, a sigh and a glance up to the heavens. “I’m not here to comment…,” began the curator before Fox, at his side, offered “I do” through a rueful smile.
England’s Brydon Carse swings optimistically on day two of the MCG Test (Martin Keep/AFP via Getty Images)
Former Australia opener and ex national team coach Justin Langer defended Page and suggested players had almost talked themselves into the pitch being too difficult to play on. Australia opener Jake Weatherald had told Langer after day one he was surprised 20 wickets had fallen because he had felt pretty good batting on it, making 10 before he was caught down the leg-side.
“It was almost like: ‘It’s such a bad wicket’… but you’ve got to fight through it,” Langer said on For the Love of Cricket after day two. “I sensed Australia had almost talked themselves out of it (the fight). Some of the shots today were un-Australian.”
‘TikTok cricket’ was how the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne described the match on its front page on Sunday. Both captains, though, felt the pitch wasn’t up to scratch.
“I think, because of the thickness of the grass, the ball was just sitting in the grass,” said Australia’s stand-in skipper Steve Smith in his post-match media duties. “It was tricky to drive the ball because of how much the seam was just catching the grass and it was stopping.”
Steve Smith and Ben Stokes were critical of the playing surface at the MCG (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
It should be noted there were no overs of spin bowled for only the second time ever in an Ashes Test. When the ball was seaming that much, spinners simply were not required, a reality Smith lamented.
Smith’s counterpart Ben Stokes told the BBC’s Test Match Special: “With 36 wickets in less than two days and no total over 200, you can read into that a lot.”
He added in his press conference, seemingly referring to the sub-continent where wickets that spin excessively have drawn criticism from observers: “I’m pretty sure if that was somewhere else in the world there’d be hell on.”
What nobody could deny was that it was an incredibly entertaining match, one you could not take your eye off for a single ball, and will live long in the memory.
Unfortunately for Cricket Australia and Page, that entertainment came at a cost.
