The Melbourne Cricket Ground pitch offered no respite after a frenetic opening day of the Boxing Day Test, where all 20 wickets tumbled, and the contest raced towards an early finish, eventually ending inside two days with England emerging on top. Batting was a constant battle for both Australia and England, as the ball swung appreciably and seamed sharply off the surface. Even set batters found it hard to settle, with uneven bounce and persistent movement forcing mistakes and triggering a steady flow of wickets.
Batting great Sunil Gavaskar struck a sharp, sarcastic note while reacting to yet another two-day Test in Australia, pointing out the irony of the Perth pitch earlier in the series receiving a “very good” rating, even as fans questioned the declining quality of surfaces and the impact on the game’s credibility.
“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.
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Gavaskar extended his humour by pointing out that a change in match referee could conveniently change the verdict as well. With Jeff Crowe overseeing the Melbourne and Sydney Tests, he hinted that the MCG pitch — where 36 wickets fell compared to 32 in Perth — might lose the “very” from “very good” and be rated simply “good,” though he added that surprises are always possible.
“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.
Sunil Gavaskar calls out double standards
The Indian great continued his tongue-in-cheek critique, backing the MCG’s turf staff and calling out the hypocrisy in how pitch curators are judged. He noted that errors can happen anywhere, but curators in Australia are seldom accused of manipulation, unlike those in India who are quickly labelled villains — a point he drove home with a wry, sarcastic flourish.
“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,” Gavaskar added.
