You know that something has gone wrong when the man in charge of the cricket pitch is giving a post-match press conference. Australian pitches are celebrities in their own right, each with a distinct perceived personality. Perth – gasoline, bounce. Sydney – intrigue, spin. Adelaide – graft, a late finale. Like any possessor of fame who has been around long enough, some trade on past glories that no longer apply, but what those ideas mean to the people repeating them is worth more than the truth itself.
Aptly, these celebrities have agents, representatives, fluffers, heading to media appearances before each Test to prognosticate. Where the English grass gaffers are still called groundsmen, clomping around in gumboots yelling at interlopers to get off their giant lawn, the Australians are curators, artfully synthesising the elements of sun and rain and dew and morning mist into something tangible. Their pre-match appearances are oracular, reading the grass clippings like Babylonians did the heavens to say what might happen, to give the mood of the soil, to press one ear to the ground and tell you whether she be restless or still.
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These pre-game rituals are PR, gardeners as hype men, giving the coverage another discussion point. Damian Hough set the trend in Adelaide in 2015 for the first pink-ball Test, a justified appearance given how experimental the format was, and then every ground wanted one. But following up the preview with a post-game bookend, as the Melbourne Cricket Ground curator, Matt Page, had to do on Sunday, can only mean that what happened in the interim was a disaster. For the venue and the host board, that’s what a two-day Test match is.
Right now, everyone is suddenly an expert on pitch preparation and will tell you that 10 millimetres of grass was too long. If pitch prep was as simple as lowering the blade on the mower – each millimetre means one degree of difficulty out of ten – then anyone could do it. Instead it’s a wildly variable practice. In New Zealand we have seen lush live grass play like the deck of an aircraft carrier. In Abu Dhabi we’ve seen Mohammad Abbas nip the ball on a slice of wholewheat. In Melbourne, Page was worried about imminent hot weather baking the earth, while longer grass was supposed to offer UV protection.
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While that proved as helpful as swallowing sunscreen, there was a rationale. The rationale didn’t work, the pitch gave too much seam movement – to a point. But not enough to explain the match that we saw. Consider that, before this series, Australia and England had played each other in 361 Tests. Six of them had ended in two days. The first five came between 1882 and 1890, the other was in 1921. During this series, it has happened twice in four matches.
For a thought experiment, try making the argument out loud that the 2025 Melbourne pitch was literally the worst Ashes surface produced in more than a century, including several series in England before the use of covers during rain. Think about how credible that sounds. Try backing up that claim while also explaining that the Perth Test a month ago was five balls shorter, on a pitch whose only sin was offering bounce. Account for two Tests in one series that now sit ninth and 10th on the list of shortest concluded Ashes matches by deliveries bowled.
These pitches were not suddenly more extreme than the parameters of the last century. If looking for what is, you have to land on the current approach to batting. Having moved past the “play your natural game” cliche, the most corrosive thought bubble in modern cricket is now “a ball with your name on it”. Players wheel this out any time a surface is difficult, assuming a philosophy of fatalism: dismissal is inevitable, therefore defence is as risky as attack, therefore they should slog and hope for the best.
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You’ll see it in England’s chase, and how Steve Smith batted with Australia’s lower order. Get the bowlers before they get you, maybe a quick 30 helps win the game. It introduces a manic flavour to the match, a contagion that spreads through teams, careering towards a close one way or another instead of trying to maintain control. Then on top of that were so many other Australian wickets, not a product of unplayable conditions or deliveries, or a frenzy to score, but of basic sloppy cricket.
Jake Weatherald was bowled by swing through the air, having nicked down the leg-side first dig. Usman Khawaja pulled without looking at the ball, flinching and turning his head away. Cameron Green chased one so wide that it was harder to hit than to leave, after running himself out the previous day. Alex Carey opened his blade to a stacked cordon, having previously flicked straight to leg slip.
Good bowling with assistance is not the only strand of the tale. Australia batted like a team that had switched off with the main mission accomplished. England were wilder but not much better. Perhaps that’s all understandable given the series pressure, the mental strain. But it doesn’t mean a pitch that wasn’t right deserves an exaggerated casting into folklore as an MCG minefield. Batters of a different mindset, different technique, different era, could have found a way; the current cohort didn’t and couldn’t. Perhaps that skill is lost to them. It shouldn’t be. Page being sent to face the press was an apology in itself, but a few players could offer him one in return.
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