The man behind the Ashes’ biggest controversy makes stunning admission after Boxing Day Test farce
The MCG’s head curator has confessed that he and his crew got it badly wrong and admitted he was in a ‘state of shock’ as the Boxing Day Test lasted just two days thanks to the pitch he prepared.
Matt Page fronted the media on Sunday morning as fingers were pointed over the farcical scenes in Melbourne, where his decision to leave extra grass on the pitch robbed fans of three days’ play and left Cricket Australia up to $10million out of pocket.
‘I was in a state of shock after the first day, to see everything that happened and 20 wickets in a day, I’ve never been involved in a Test match like it, and hopefully will never be involved in a Test match like it again,’ Page said.
‘It was a roller-coaster ride for two days to see everything unfold.’
Page defended the decision to leave 10mm of grass on the wicket instead of the 7mm for last year’s Boxing Day Test against India, which went the full five days.
‘This year we went in with 10 mils as we knew we were going to get a lot of hot weather at the back end of the game,’ he said.
MCG head curator Matt Page (pictured) fronted the media on Sunday to confess he and his crew got the Boxing Day Test pitch badly wrong
Pictured: England stars Harry Brook (left) and Jamie Smith celebrate winning the Test at the MCG, which lasted just two days and cost Cricket Australia as much as $10million
‘We’re really conscious of flat pitches, we don’t want to go back to what we had in 2017 [when it favoured batters far too much]. Our grass is vitally important to what we do.’
Despite the outcry over the failed deck, an ‘obviously disappointed’ Melbourne Cricket Club CEO Stuart Fox threw his support behind Page.
‘Matt and his team have done it before and he’s produced some good pitches, so I’ve got all the faith in the world in Matt and his team,’ Fox said on Sunday morning.
After the second two-day Test of the summer, Australia players will return to the MCG to sign autographs for fans who were instead hoping to watch them play out in the middle.
Cricket Australia is bracing for a monster financial loss after England won the Boxing Day Test inside two days, only a month after the Ashes opener in Perth also ended with three days to spare.
It is the first time the same series has had multiple two-day Tests in 129 years.
Millions of dollars in refunds will be handed to patrons who had purchased tickets for day three, which had virtually been sold out.
Speaking before the match, Page was hoping to replicate the surface for the epic 2024 Test against India that ended in the final session on day five.
But instead the pitch became a fast bowler’s dream, as neither team bothered with one over from a spinner.
This pitch was treacherous to bat on for both sides, prompting criticism even from fast-bowling greats such as Stuart Broad, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee, and former England captain Michael Vaughan.
Melbourne Cricket Club CEO Stuart Fox (pictured third from left) threw his support behind Page despite the farce
Page (left) is pictured examining the failed deck with a match official on the second – and last – day of play in the Test
‘Maybe if you took it from 10 to eight mm (of grass), it would have been a nice, challenging wicket, but maybe a little bit more even,’ stand-in Australia captain Steve Smith said.
‘But groundsmen are always learning and they’ll probably take something from that.’
England captain Ben Stokes, even after securing his country’s first Test win in Australia for 15 years, slammed the state of the pitch for being too heavily in favour of bowlers.
‘Being brutally honest, that’s not really what you want,’ Stokes said.
‘Boxing Day Test match, you don’t want a game finishing in less than two days. Not ideal.’
Nobody from either side managed to reach 50, with Travis Head’s second-innings 46 the top score.
It was the first Test in Australia where a batter has not posted a fifty since 1932.
Both teams thought so little of the pitch they decided the best way to bat was to attack rather than wait for an unplayable delivery.
Smith praised the batting of England blaster Harry Brook, who regularly charged down the pitch and looked to play outrageously aggressive shots.
Brook followed up a first-innings 41 with an unbeaten 18 in the successful run chase.
‘Running down the wicket, playing some kind of rogue shots and trying to get the bowlers off their lengths that way,’ Smith said of Brook.
‘Whether we could have been a bit more proactive potentially, and played a few more of those, that’s something we’ll talk about.
‘It’s also a tricky one to do that, you want to try and dig in for your team.’
The rapid-fire Boxing Day Test comes eight years after the MCG pitch came under criticism and received a ‘poor’ rating when only 24 wickets fell across five days in a dull draw.
Australia and England will enjoy an extra three days to prepare for the fifth and final Test at the SCG, starting on January 4.
