THE NEW ARENA

The grassy drop-in wicket unveiled on Thursday appears to be a pace bowler’s paradise. The ball has dominated matches at the stadium this season: Australia was dismissed for 152 in an ODI loss to South Africa last month

The second Test will be a trip into the unknown for both Australia and India as the Optus Stadium in Perth hosts its first ever Test match. The new ground has only staged one first-class match, last month’s Sheffield Shield clash between Western Australia and New South Wales. It was a low-scoring affair with New South Wales’ first innings of 261 the highest of the match as the visitors beat Western Australia by 104 runs.

More pertinently, 32 of the 40 wickets in that encounter fell to seamers. There has been talk ahead of the second Test that the pitch at Optus Stadium is uncharacteristically quick and bouncy by drop-in pitch standards and that conditions are reminiscent of the WACA Ground, the current ground’s predecessor in Perth.

The fact that Jhye Richardson, one of the quickest bowlers in the Australian domestic circuit, took match figures of 11-105 in that Sheffield Shield tie surely bodes well for fast bowlers from both sides. That, coupled with the fact that 14 of the 24 wickets to have been taken by seamers in the two ODIs hosted at Optus Stadium have been from balls shorter than a good length, suggests that this is a venue where seamers can cause batsmen discomfort.

The data from the most recent of those two ODIs – Australia’s defeat to South Africa in November – suggests that this is a venue with plenty of pace and bounce. The quick bowlers found an average 93cm of bounce from good length balls, more than any ODI in Australia since 2015 and the 11th highest of any match in our database (2005present).

Of course, that match featured some of the fastest bowlers in world cricket so it is perhaps no surprise that the likes of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Kagiso Rabada were able to find so much life in the pitch. However, even Marcus Stoinis, whose average speed is 130kph, was able to find 90cm of bounce from good length deliveries, compared to his career average of 84cm.

India’s top-six have largely struggled against balls bouncing to that extent, with only Ajinkya Rahane able to say he has mastered playing that kind of delivery. That said, it is a similar story for Australia even though they collectively have a better record than India. Usman Khawaja’s formidable record is something of an outlier. The yet to be dismissed Aaron Finch, Marcus Harris and Travis Head however have not been tested on bouncy surfaces, having only played in the UAE and at Adelaide last week.

So we can expect the pitch at Optus Stadium to be quick and bouncy. But what about the movement on offer? In terms of deviation off the pitch, the South Africa match featured 0.65° on average, with Rabada extracting the most average movement (0.73°).

Only one ODI match hosted in Australia in 2018 featured more average seam movement than the Perth fixture, and the red Kookaburra typically finds more deviation than its white counterpart.

We can therefore expect plenty of assistance from the pitch in terms of seam movement, in addition to the pace and bounce on offer.

If conditions in Perth are as we expect, Australia will find the pitch much more to their liking than the one they lost on in Adelaide. There is enough to suggest that the hosts can come roaring back into contention with a win at Optus Stadium to leave the series beautifully poised at 1-1 with two matches to play.

14 OF THE 24 WICKETS THAT HAVE BEEN TAKEN BY SEAMERS IN THE TWO ODIS HOSTED AT OPTUS STADIUM HAVE BEEN OFF BALLS SHORTER THAN A GOOD LENGTH.