{"id":340230,"date":"2025-12-29T01:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T01:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340230\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T01:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T01:52:11","slug":"the-ashes-2025-26-mcg-pitch-fallout-continues-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340230\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes 2025-26: MCG pitch fallout continues in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fallout from the two-day Melbourne Test continues in Australia with one newspaper, the Herald Sun Sunday, labelling the match ‘Tiktok cricket’.<\/p>\n

Many of the newspapers down under are pointing out the financial hit which Cricket Australia will take following the quickfire fourth Test, with some estimates putting the losses at about \u00a35m.<\/p>\n

Melbourne Cricket Ground head curator Matthew Page said he left was in a “state of shock” by the events which unfolded but a former Australian groundsman said there should be few excuses.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Herald Sun,, external<\/a> Tony Hemming, who has prepared pitches in England, Australia, Pakistan and now Bangladesh, said: “I saw his [Page’s] press conference before the game where he talked it up as a seaming wicket and mentioned a ‘recipe’. <\/p>\n

“But if the recipe for the previous Indian Test was successful, why increase the grass cover? I would never take that risk.<\/p>\n

“With all the bells and whistles available, it’s the curator’s responsibility to read the weather and say, ‘I need a greenhouse, I need heating – this is what I need to do to produce the pitch I want.<\/p>\n

“I’ve prepared 20 Test wickets in my career, and for me it’s the pinnacle. If I were in that position, I would be doing everything possible to get it absolutely right – not experimenting at the most important game of the season.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fallout from the two-day Melbourne Test continues in Australia with one newspaper, the Herald Sun Sunday, labelling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-340230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}