{"id":340758,"date":"2025-12-29T09:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T09:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340758\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T09:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T09:54:07","slug":"ashes-2025-26-melbourne-pitch-rated-unsatisfactory-after-two-day-boxing-day-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/340758\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashes 2025-26: Melbourne pitch rated ‘unsatisfactory’ after two-day Boxing Day Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MCG’s head curator Matt Page left 10mm of grass on the pitch to counter hot conditions forecast later in the match but this has been given as a reason for the lively conditions.<\/p>\n

Page said he was in a “state of shock” during the match, which England won by four wickets.<\/a> Travis Head’s 46 in Australia’s second innings was the highest score.<\/p>\n

The Boxing Day Test was the second two-day affair of this Ashes series but the surface for the other, the first Test in Perth, was rated as “very good” suggesting batter error was more to blame there.<\/p>\n

“Unsatisfactory” is the ICC’s second lowest ranking for a pitch.<\/p>\n

Though this is the first time an Australian strip has been rated substandard under the current system, there has been trouble with the MCG pitch before.<\/p>\n

In the drawn match of 2017, the surface did not offer enough assistance for the bowlers, resulting in a dull contest in which only 24 wickets fell. That was rated as “poor”.<\/p>\n

A year later, the pitch used for a win for India was rated as “average”.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the ICC’s announcement, Australia coach Andrew McDonald defended Page, suggesting this year’s pitch should be viewed in the context of trying to improve from 2017.<\/p>\n

“He does an outstanding job,” said McDonald.<\/p>\n

“The perspective that I always use is that we [Australia] have bad Test matches as well. We had a bad Test match the first Test match last summer.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes these things can happen, but we support him in what he’s done and are really proud of the evolution of the MCG.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully people can have some context around where he’s been on the journey and support him for the next challenge that he faces.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MCG’s head curator Matt Page left 10mm of grass on the pitch to counter hot conditions forecast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-340758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340758","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=340758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}