{"id":372501,"date":"2025-12-26T07:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/372501\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T07:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:08:09","slug":"australia-vs-england-fourth-test-day-1-cricket-scores-results-start-time-wickets-teams-how-to-watch-boxing-day-test-mcg-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/372501\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia vs England fourth test day 1 cricket scores, results, start time, wickets, teams, how to watch, Boxing Day Test, MCG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cricket experts are criticising the green-topped MCG pitch after 19 wickets have already fallen in the opening day.<\/p>\n

The Australians were bowled out for 152 before the tea break as the English bowlers exploited a surface that allowed considerable sideways movement off the seam.<\/p>\n

\"England<\/p>\n

England skipper Ben Stokes becomes the 18th wicket to fall at the MCG on day one of the Boxing Day Test.Credit: Justin McManus<\/p>\n

The game is now in serious doubt of making it into a third day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a discussion at the end of the day\u2019s play about the pitch and there will be articles written about the pitch whether it\u2019s a good pitch, whether it\u2019s a bad pitch,\u201d cricket commentator Mark Howard said on Kayo Sports\u2019 live Ashes coverage.<\/p>\n

Former Australian fast bowler Brett Lee said the pitch had too much in it for the bowlers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I use the word sporty, and I\u2019ve often said, \u2018look it\u2019s a batsmen\u2019s game, we\u2019re here to see batsman score runs\u2019, but I think it\u2019s a bit too sporty in my opinion,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a little bit too much in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee said the 10mm of grass on top of the pitch at the start of the day\u2019s play presented a \u201cfurry sort-of feeling\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI rubbed my hand on the side of the wicket this morning, and you can actually feel the grass lift up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Howard said the batters were the first to notice the unusual conditions this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were raised eyebrows as the majority of batters from both sides looked at the pitch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Australian women\u2019s wicketkeeper Alyssa Healy and the partner of fast bowler Mitchell Starc said she liked the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally like it,\u201d she said. \u201cI love seeing fast bowlers charge in, get something out of the surface, give themselves some confidence as well l like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s always the way when wickets fall too quickly that we speak about the wicket.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hot topic of conversation in our household, it\u2019s never how good the bowling is, it\u2019s always about how bad the batting is when we talk about the wicket.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cricket experts are criticising the green-topped MCG pitch after 19 wickets have already fallen in the opening day.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-372501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372501","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=372501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}