Australia stand in captain Steve Smith did not hold back in his assessment of the Melbourne Cricket Ground pitch after the Boxing Day Test finished inside just two days. The fourth Ashes Test concluded rapidly after England defeated Australia by four wickets, marking their first Test win on Australian soil in nearly 15 years. England comfortably chased down a modest 175 run target on Day 2, sealing their first Test victory in Australia since 2011 and breathing life back into the Ashes series.
The match was heavily dominated by bowlers from the outset. As many as 20 wickets fell on the opening day itself, with conditions offering little respite to batters. The trend continued on the second day, where another 16 wickets tumbled within three sessions, bringing the contest to a swift end.
Following the conclusion of the match, Smith voiced his frustration with the nature of the pitch, pointing out that such an extreme contest between bat and ball was not ideal for Test cricket.
“Yeah, I think a little bit too much. It was tricky, no one could really get in. I think when you see 36 wickets across two days, that’s probably too much. So probably it did a little bit more than they (the curators) would have wanted. Maybe if we drop it (the grass) down to 8mm, it’d be about right, potentially,” Smith said during the post match presentation.
Smith also admitted that Australia’s batters failed to rise to the challenge in difficult conditions and suggested that a slightly better batting effort could have changed the outcome of the game.
He felt that had Australia managed to put an extra 50 to 60 runs on the board across both innings, the contest would have gone down to the wire.
“Tricky one, obviously a very quick game. If we’d managed that extra 50 or 60 runs across both innings, we probably would’ve been right in the contest at the end. I think it did a fair amount throughout the game, just probably when the ball softened after a few lusty blows from their top order today, it started to do a little bit less potentially. But without that, I think it was still going to offer plenty,” Smith added.
