It would be hell somewhere else: Stokes on MCG pitch

England captain Ben Stokes on Saturday came down heavily on the overwhelmingly bowler-friendly Melbourne pitch on which 20 wickets fell on Day 1 of the just-concluded Boxing Day Test, saying such a track elsewhere in the world would have invoked a barrage of criticism.

Stokes’ one-time team-mate Kevin Pietersen and former India cricketer Dinesh Kartik too joined him in slamming the MCG pitch, and highlighted the selective criticism of Indian decks when spinners get wickets in a heap there. Stokes said it was not a pitch that suited the Boxing Day Test, even though his side won the match by four wickets.

“Being brutally honest, that’s not really what you want. Boxing Day Test match. You don’t want a game finishing in less than two days. Not ideal. But you can’t change it once you start the game and you’ve just got to play what’s in front of you,” Stokes told the media after the match. Further, Stokes indicated that if such a rain of wickets had happened elsewhere in the world then the critics would have sharpened their knives in a haste.

“But I’m pretty sure if that was somewhere else in the world, there’d be hell on. Not the best thing for games that should be played over five days. But we played a type of cricket that ended up getting the job done,” he added. Asked specifically if he was talking about spin-friendly pitches in Asia, Stokes replied rather tongue-in-cheek, “Your words, not mine.”

The Australian and England bowlers combined to take 20 wickets here on Friday, while the hosts were bundled out for 132 in their second innings in 34.3 overs in a little over one session on Saturday. The irony was not lost on Pietersen either. “India ALWAYS gets hammered when wickets fall like crazy on day 1 of a Test and so I hope that Australia gets the same scrutiny! Fair is fair!,” wrote former England skipper Pietersen on X.

The decision to leave 10mm grass on the MCG deck generated massive sideways movement, making batting here a lottery. In all, 36 wickets tumbled in six sessions at Melbourne as the fourth Test ended inside two days with England winning by four wickets. Australia stand-in captain Steve Smith said the pitch offered a “little too much”. “(It was a) tricky one… 36 wickets, over two days, probably offered just a little bit too much,” he said.

“It’s tough as a groundsman, he’s always looking for the right sort of balance, I suppose. Last year’s wicket was an outstanding one. It went to day five (and the) last session.” “In an ideal world, every wicket does that and it’s exciting for everyone, but maybe if you took it (down) from 10(mm) to 8(mm), it would have been a nice challenging wicket, but maybe a little bit more even, I suppose.”

“(The) groundsmen are always learning and you will probably take something from that, no doubt,” he added. The entire Ashes series so far has seen action only on 13 days out of the total 20 match days. Earlier, the first Test at Perth too ended inside two days with the Aussies clinching it by eight wickets.

“MCG have produced an ordinary pitch here. Can’t believe 2 out of the 4 ashes tests could end in 2 days. For all the hype, 4 ashes tests have happened in just 13 days,” voiced Karthik. The observations were based on the heavy criticism Indian spinners and pitches often have to encounter when such things happen in the sub-continent.

To trace an instance, the pundits were up in arms when England failed to counter Indian spinners on turners in Ahmedabad during the 2020-21 series. The visiting side won the first Test at Chennai, but crumbled against Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel in the next three Tests across Chepauk and Ahmedabad when pitches offered increased assistance to spinners.

But such outpouring of anger was less visible when pitches were skewed to help pacers Down Under during the ongoing Ashes. “This pitch is a joke .. This is selling the game short .. The players / Broadcasters and more importantly the fans .. 26 wickets in 98 overs,” Former India opener Aakash Chopra was more forthcoming in his views.

“Not a single over of spin in 1.5 days of a Test match. 27 wickets have fallen already. Imagine the meltdown if not a single over of pace was bowled for that long in the subcontinent,” wrote Chopra in social media accounts. In fact, both Australia and England entered the fourth Test without a frontline spinner, and did not even give a chance to part-timers like Travis Head or Will Jacks.

Bad for business: CA Even Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg admitted that the Melbourne pitch was not a great advertisement for Test cricket, a format that already faces several other challenges. “As mesmerising and fascinating and enjoyable as it was to watch as a fan, we want Test cricket clearly to go for longer. I didn’t sleep well last night, put it that way.

“A simple phrase I’d use is short Tests are bad for business. I can’t be much more blunt than that. So I would like to see a slightly broader balance between the bat and the ball. “I thought yesterday (Day 1) slightly favoured the ball. The batters have some ownership in some of that, it’s not all around the pitch, but we’ve got some challenges,” Greenberg told SEN.