The Melbourne pitch was heavily favourable for pace bowlers and the game ended inside two days.
The Melbourne pitch dished out for the Boxing Day Ashes Test has come under severe scrutiny after the game was over inside two days, with England defeating Australia by four wickets.
The surface was prepared with 10 millimetres of grass on the wicket, making it heavily favourable for the pace bowlers. A total of 20 wickets fell on the opening day while 16 wickets tumbled on Day 2 as no batter managed to hit a half-century across the match.
Legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar has delivered a sarcastic verdict of the MCG track, stating that the match referee would only drop ‘very’ from ‘very good’ while rating the strip.
The 76-year-old also mentioned how cricket fans in India were left baffled after the Perth pitch was declared ‘very good’ despite the Ashes opener finishing inside two days.
“Another Test match in Australia has finished in less than two days of cricket. The Australian Cricket Board’s CEO says it is not good business, and most, if not all, cricket fans in the sub-continent (read India) are screaming blue murder about the quality of the pitch given in Melbourne. They were astonished when the first Test match pitch in Perth was given a very good rating by the match referee Ranjan Madugalle,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.
“Since there is a new match referee, Jeff Crowe, for the Melbourne and Sydney Test matches, the rating could be different. Since 36 wickets fell in the Melbourne Test instead of 32 in Perth, Crowe might drop the word ‘very’ from the ‘very good’ that Madugalle gave for the Perth pitch and rate the MCG pitch as good. Surprises never cease, of course, so we may get another rating,” he added.
“The curators, or as we found out about the person in charge at the MCG, the Director of Turf, may make a human error and get it slightly wrong, but they are not as devious as those ‘horrible groundsmen’ in India who do not even prepare a pitch and expect the batters to score runs on them. Tut tut,” he continued.
Gavaskar further highlighted the double standards, citing that match referees are quick to give poor ratings if batters dominate in a Test match instead of bowlers.
“The irony is that if it is a pitch where not too many wickets fall but plenty of runs are scored, then the match referee more often than not gives it a poor rating. So, batters scoring loads of runs is a no-no, but bowlers picking heaps of wickets is okay, and the pitch has to be rated good or very good," Gavaskar remarked.
"Clearly, it is no longer a batters’ game but the bowlers’,” he concluded.