Cricket<\/a> Club\u2019s head curator, left 10 mm of grass on the pitch, up from 7mm last year when Australia famously beat India late on day five.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to balance that contest between bat and ball throughout, over the four or five days, to provide that captivating Test for all,\u201d Page told a press conference at the MCG on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe left it longer because we knew we were going to get [hot] weather at the back end that we knew we needed our grass [for].<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look back at it and you go, \u2018well, it\u2019s favoured the bowlers too much days one and two\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that doesn\u2019t happen, then we set ourselves up really good for day three and four.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthew Page speaks to a match official on the second day of the MCG Test. Photograph: Martin Keep\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The pitch was treacherous to bat on for both sides, with batters struggling with the sideways movement of the wobble-seam ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t have seam movement here at the MCG we become very dull, very lifeless and very flat, which is no good for the players, no good for the spectators and it\u2019s no good for the game,\u201d Page said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for us, it\u2019s about providing that seam movement. We\u2019ve gone too far with this one and obviously we\u2019re very, very disappointed that it\u2019s only gone two days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Page said he was \u201ca state of shock\u201d watching the match unfold on the first day. \u201cIt was a rollercoaster ride for two days,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll learn from it, we\u2019ll grow from it, we\u2019ll get better at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pitch prompted criticism even from fast-bowling greats such as Stuart Broad, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee that it was unfair for batters.<\/p>\n
England captain Ben Stokes, even after securing his country\u2019s first Test win in Australia for 15 years, criticised the pitch for being too heavily in favour of bowlers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing brutally honest, that\u2019s not really what you want,\u201d Stokes said. \u201cBoxing Day Test match, you don\u2019t want a game finishing in less than two days. Not ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Ben Stokes leaves the field after being dismissed on day two of the fourth Ashes Test. Photograph: Philip Brown\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
But MCC boss Stuart Fox said he had full faith in Page and his ground staff.<\/p>\n
Page was poached from the WACA after the MCG pitch received a poor rating when only 24 wickets fell across five days in a dull 2017 draw.<\/p>\n
Fox suggested not all of the blame should be on Page, saying aggressive batting also contributed to the landslide of wickets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe bought Matt on eight years ago because he\u2019s considered one of the best in the country, if not the best,\u201d Fox said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still believe that, and I always will.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done a great job; him and his team worked tirelessly to get this right.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see he\u2019s disappointed. He carries that responsibility and my job as a leader is to support people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you believe in your people, you get behind them and support them and I know he\u2019ll respond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia star Travis Head, who top-scored in the match with 46, said he felt for Page.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel for him, it\u2019s bloody tough,\u201d Head said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou leave one or two millimetres (of grass) on with high quality bowling, and you find yourself short, and you take two or three mills off with high quality batting, and you go the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia and England will enjoy an extra three days to prepare for the fifth and final Test at the SCG, which starts on 4 January.<\/p>\n
With Australian Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MCG\u2019s head curator has conceded staff went \u201ctoo far\u201d in preparing a pitch that favoured the bowlers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-372234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}