{"id":289655,"date":"2025-11-17T04:28:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T04:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/289655\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T04:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T04:28:24","slug":"australia-inspect-optus-stadium-pitch-ahead-of-perth-test-against-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/289655\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia inspect Optus Stadium pitch ahead of Perth Test against England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s Test stars have had their first look at the Optus Stadium surface ahead of Friday\u2019s Ashes opener in Perth.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, captain Steve Smith and wicketkeeper Alex Carey were spotted inspecting the pitch that troubled the hosts last summer, when India stormed to a resounding victory in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar series.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/p>\n

Steve Smith and Alex Carey take a look at the Optus Stadium pitch, four days out from the first Ashes Test.<\/p>\n

Four days out from ball one, the wicket has a noticeable green tinge and an even grass covering. But with Perth temperatures forecast to hit 33 degrees on Monday and 31 on Tuesday, the pitch is expected to dry out by the end of the week.<\/p>\n

Former Test captain Greg Chappell wrote in his column<\/a> for this masthead last week Australia should prepare for a Perth surface that \u201cboasts a reputation built on sheer pace and bounce\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strip here is pure energy, where the ball flies with a velocity unmatched anywhere else,\u201d Chappell wrote.<\/p>\n

Optus Stadium curator Isaac McDonald told The West Australian last week he expected there to be \u201cpace and bounce\u201d in the pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething in it for the quicks, something in it for the batters. Good batters scored good runs and the quicks were in the game in the last few Tests here,\u201d McDonald told the West Australian.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019re] aiming for that really good balance between bat and ball but the characteristics of pace and bounce have got to be there and we\u2019ll see what happens on day one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Test stars have had their first look at the Optus Stadium surface ahead of Friday\u2019s Ashes opener…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-289655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}