The drought is over.
After 15 years, England have finally won another Test in Australia, coming out on the right side of a fast-moving, two-day clash at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Talk of a 5-0 whitewash can now be parked but you sense there will be plenty more chat about the MCG surface, which featured 10mm of grass, as 36 wickets fell in just 142 overs of a wild match.
None of those 142 overs were bowled by a spinner with seamers monopolising on a heavily-grassed pitch on which no batter passed 50 – Travis Head’s 46 for the hosts the best of the lot.
The brisk finish will cost Cricket Australia millions of dollars as ticket refunds are issued and the organisation suffers lost sales in merchandise, food and drink.
CA CEO Todd Greenberg told SEN Radio before day two: “A simple phrase I’d use is – short Tests are bad for business. I can’t be much more blunt than that.
“Historically we have taken a hands-off approach in all of our wicket preparation…but it’s hard not to get more involved when you see the impact on the sport, particularly commercially.”
Sir Alastair Cook said the deck on day one led to an “unfair contest” as 20 wickets fell, with another former England captain Michael Vaughan dubbing it a “shocker”.
But what did Sky Sports’ men at the ground Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain make of the heavily-grassed wicket as this Ashes series experienced a second two-dayer in four Tests after the blink-and-you’ll miss opening contest in Perth?
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Steve Smith reflects on Australia’s loss to England in Melbourne
‘I don’t think Shane Warne would have thought that pitch was acceptable’
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Ben Stokes gave his thoughts on the ‘tricky’ wicket at the MCG, after England beat Australia in the fourth Test in under two days
Hussain said: “I don’t think the great Shane Warne would have thought that was acceptable and I don’t think it’s acceptable not having spin at all and there being so much movement in the surface.
“It was farcical at times. That can be thrilling but there are traditionalists who like the ebbs and flows and the slow build. This was not slow, it was in fast-forward and we have enough of that whether through T10, T20, The Hundred.”
Hussain then asked fellow pundit Atherton whether he thought the MCG surface was acceptable for Test cricket.
Athers said: “It wasn’t dangerous and it was fair to both sides in the sense that it didn’t change. It was a shoot-out on a difficult pitch. But in terms of spectacle it’s unsatisfactory.
Australia stand-in captain Steve Smith says the MCG surface was too much
“There was not an over of spin bowled in the game and you have 90,000 people who have got tickets for day three so this is going to cost Cricket Australia an absolute bomb.
“You also had players saying the only way to play on the pitch is in an unorthodox manner, so for all kinds of reasons, it is an unsatisfactory feeling.
“I liken it to one of the rank turners we have seen in Asia in recent years where the pitch spins from the start. It is a fair contest in that both sides have an even chance but it doesn’t necessarily allow for the whole range of skills to show.
“England supporters will clearly be thrilled they have seen a win, and so will England players, but people watching will be thinking, ‘what kind of Test cricket have I seen?’
“You come to watch a broad variety of skills and the game develop over a period of time. You are going to get extreme conditions from time to time but we have had two now in this series and I don’t think we want to see this too frequently.”
Stokes: MCG pitch would get ‘hell’ elsewhere
England captain Ben Stokes said his feedback to match referee about the surface would “not be the best”, adding: “Being brutally honest, that’s not what you want for a Boxing Day Test match.
“You don’t want a game finishing in less than two days. I’m pretty sure if that was somewhere else in the world there’d be hell on.”
When asked by reporters if Stokes was referring to Asian pitches that can spin prodigiously, he said: “Those are your words, not mine.”
Ben Stokes was one of the seamers to flourish on a green Melbourne wicket
Australia skipper Steve Smith, deputising for the rested Pat Cummins, said: “I think the pitch was too much. It was tricky.
“When you see 30-odd wickets across two days it is probably too much. Maybe we could drop the grass down from 10mm to 8mm.
“It would be good if it was a little bit longer and we were able to entertain the fans some more but it wasn’t to be.”
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