FEATURES
Follow UsIt all started in December 2017 when the International Cricket Council (ICC) hammered the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) for preparing a ‘poor’ pitch. It was an unprecedented event for cricket in Australia.
Never had an international surface in the country been rated poor. What’s worse? It came in one of the highly anticipated clashes of that year - the Boxing Day Test between England and Australia, where England’s Sir Alastair Cook dominated the hosts with an unbeaten 244. On that pitch, a result for either team was beyond the realms of possibility, given how placid it was.
Had it been a one-off occurrence, perhaps it wouldn’t have made the headline. But the entire 2017/18 domestic season, finishing without a single outright result, led to the venue being dubbed the ‘Australian cricketing graveyard’.
Then entered Matt Page, a curator who was roped in just to make the pitch at MCG more spicy.
"It may take us three to five years to get there, in terms of projects we want to knock off, but the Melbourne Cricket Club management have been really supportive of that and have been prepared to do whatever it takes to get to that overall goal,” Page told ESPNCricinfo, before the revolution to reboot the pitch at the iconic venue.
With the Boxing Day Test a tradition at the iconic venue since 1990, there were cries, even from former players like Adam Gilchrist, to take the game away from the venue, which proved to be a disaster. But Cricket Australia (CA) denied any of that suggestion, stating that such a fixture would never leave Australia’s home of cricket - MCG.
But all of this had to be done via drop-in pitches, considering that the venue has served as a multi-purpose stadium for a long time, given how it was used for different sports - be it soccer, rugby or cricket.
It wasn’t just sports; the stadium was also home to concerts of some of the biggest names in the music industry - Guns N’ Roses, Eminem, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. So, the task for Page and his team was much more complicated - building a drop-in pitch to help the venue return to its glory days.
Since Page took over, the iconic venue has hosted six Boxing Day clashes and all of them, as promised, had a result. While the venue had a sub-par beginning with the clash against India - which saw the visitors win by 137 runs, the pitches at the ‘G saw visible improvement over the next four encounters, leading to the 2023 Boxing Day clash between Australia and Pakistan.
In the six Tests at the venue since Page took over, the batting average has been 25.2, with a run-rate of 2.8. Not just that, an average first-innings total of 300 has been seen at the venue, with only the third-innings being a tricky part - where only 168 runs have been scored on average.
But that is also down to some ordinary showing from the opponents - England and South Africa - in the 2021 and 2022 Boxing Day events, where they were hammered by an innings and 14 runs and an innings and 182 runs, respectively.
MCG gave the visitors - Pakistan - a glimmer of hope, considering that they were victorious at the venue two decades ago.
The clash saw 1081 runs and 40 wickets fall, with a batting average of 27.03 and as many as 103 boundaries being scored between the two sides. Despite rain delaying the start of the first day, there weren’t any demons on the pitch, with it remaining quite a sporting wicket for both the batters and the bowlers.
In fact, even in the third and fourth innings - where run-scoring is usually quite tricky across various global venues - the wicket at the ‘G stayed true to its nature. Pakistan, chasing a mammoth target of 317, were in the game for the longest time when their skipper Shan Masood batted alongside Babar Azam.
With no real help from the pitch, it required a monumental effort from Pat Cummins, 10/97, to seal a memorable win for the Kangaroos. The ‘G was no longer a venue that was a ‘graveyard for cricket’ with lively pitches for both batters and bowlers - which has seen record crowds.
“Love playing here. Boxing Day - biggest Test match of the calendar. Love the build-up around Christmas. Last few years, the wickets have been nice. You got a few options here, there's a bit of seam in the last few years. I like a bit of up and down bounce. You can bowl some short balls. The run-up's always really nice here,” Australian skipper Cummins said in the aftermath of the second Test.
Opposition skipper Shan Masood agreed and added, “The groundsmen did a wonderful job, one of the better Test pitches that we have played on, something for everyone. Very glad that we got to play such an exciting Test match.”
Australia’s clash against Pakistan saw an attendance of 164,835 through the four days of action, which also happened to be the most attended Boxing Day clash involving Pakistan, with an average attendance of 41,209.
It took Page and his team exactly five years to turn around the fortunes of the iconic venue, and the MCG is now healthier, more than ever. If not for the pitch reboot, cricket would now have been just an afterthought for the cricketing diehards in the coastal capital of the southeastern Australian state, Victoria.
