SURFACE TENSION
MCG serves up another dud in Test turf bore
A PREDICTABLY flat MCG pitch has ensured a fizzling start to the Boxing Day Test, bringing a lull in proceedings after an enthralling contest in Perth.
Concerns about the venue’s drop-in wicket were borne out yesterday as India reached 2-215 at the end of a largely uneventful first day.
Curator Matt Page has worked hard to inject some life into the pitch, which was so docile for last year’s drawn Ashes Test that it received an unprecedented ‘poor’ rating from the International Cricket Council.
The early signs were not positive. Several deliveries failed to carry through to Tim Paine behind the stumps in the early going, prompting the skipper to call on offspinner Nathan Lyon after just seven overs and medium-pacer Mitch Marsh soon after.
Two of the past four MCG Tests have resulted in draws. Another ‘poor’ rating would leave the MCG at risk of being stripped of the Boxing Day Test.
THE decision to put off a revamp of the decade-old MCG drop-in pitches has stolen the momentum from a gripping Test series after Boxing Day became a war of attrition.
India took the ascendancy getting to 2-215 as Australia’s bowlers were forced to bend their backs in 89 gruelling overs on a wicket derided by past and present players as nothing short of a road.
It was only the fifth time in history two wickets or less had fallen on the opening day of an MCG Test, and the first time since the summer of 1970-71.
And 12 months on from the Ashes draw that put the blowtorch on the tired MCG square, Aussie batsman Travis Head said “funky fields” could be the only way to bring about a result this time around.
“I thought it would offer a little bit more than what it did in the first couple of hours,” Head said after 6½ trying hours in the field.
“We didn’t get the ball to swing and it didn’t assist off the wicket as much as it did in Perth and Adelaide, so you have to become a little bit proactive.
“Victoria have been extremely good at that. You learn off how the home team plays here. We saw that a little bit today with some funky fields . . . trying to change the momentum of the game.”
Head said it would be a “massive morning” as the Aussies try to dismiss Indian wall Cheteshwar Pujara (68 not out) and captain Virat Kohli (47 not out) and stay in a match that could slip away on a wicket set to bake in the 37C heat predicted for day two.
Aussie captain Tim Paine grassed a tough chance late in the day off his opposite number Kohli to hammer home the pain with the prospect of a tough slog ahead.
A post-mortem after last year’s Ashes debacle, involving officials from Cricket Australia and the MCC, resolved to persist with seven of the 10 pitches that make up the MCG square and hope one of them could suddenly spring to life.
But as balls sailed past the stumps only halfway up through the first session on a wicket purposely left covered in grass – and some didn’t even carry to Paine – nightmares of last year’s five-day bat-a-thon were revisited.
A full-on revamp of the MCG’s drop-in pitches is expected before next summer with the potential for new technology to help produce fast, bouncy wickets like Adelaide and Perth; pitches that have produced results already this series.
Curator Matt Page confirmed before the game that plans for reworking the entire drop-in system were with the architects.
But with the best series in years being played out right now, MCC officials could be left to lament their immediate inaction after the first-ever “poor” rating for a Melbourne wicket last year.
Aussie quick Pat Cummins did his best to muster something from the wicket, and hit the Indian batsmen on five occasions, including smashing a delivery into the helmet of debutant opener Mayank Argawal before he was dismissed for a polished 76.
Cummins also got balls to rear at Pujara but couldn’t find a way to get him out and headed to an ice-bath after play dreading the work to come.
At the end of day one last year, Australia finished at 3-244, before the match petered out to a draw and the pitch became the only thing anyone could talk about.
“I wasn’t here last year,” Head said
“Hopefully the game moves forward but, yeah, today was tough work.”