Test The Ashes Fourth Test December 26-30 1000hrs @ The MCG

[Daka]

Hopefully the Suns comes out & cooks the pitch today, was very overcast yesterday.

 

[Osho]

George has a sober opinion of the pitch. He does seem a bit worn down by thiis series though, it could be a bout of ennui.

 

[pebblesofsand]

It says a lot about the state of the modern long game that Australia (supposedly the best team in the world) was all out for 152 against a very second rate English bowling attack.

It seems that most batsmen need "roads" these days to score consistently because in the main, their techniques are worse than ordinary.

 

[Jack Lord]

Of all the day one stumps scores in this series this is the first time we’ve been ahead of the game.

To illustrate:

T1

Eng 172
Aus 9/129

T2

Eng 9/325
(They were 9/264 and had seemingly wrestled back the momentum)

T3

Aus 8/326
(It was the consensus this was unders after winning the toss on a flat wicket)

T4

Aus 152
Eng 110
Aus 0/4

 

[western royboy]

George has a sober opinion of the pitch. He does seem a bit worn down by thiis series though, it could be a bout of ennui.

Reckon he was spot on

 

[Topkent]

Happy to have this out again, that days cricket was 100x better than anything at Adelaide. Maybe slightly too much in the bowlers favour with no one making a half century, but that's real exciting cricket when every ball matters.

 

[rdhopkins2]

Whoever gave Bay 13 to the Poms should be charged with treason. Terrible decision.

 

[The Tilt]

Yeah, I have no frame of reference for how many degrees of movement makes it "flat", "difficult to bat on", whatever.

But I suppose Adelaide on day 1 being flat and having 0.5 degrees of movement, and Perth being sporting (but not difficult to bat on, maybe slightly on the bowler side of friendly) being 0.66. Then Melbourne being 0.83 means the difference between it and Perth in terms of day 1 seam movement is approximately similar to Perth and Adelaide.

That is, Melbourne is harder to bat on at a similar amount that Perth was hard to bat on compared to Adelaide.

It seems to me that maybe 0.6-0.65 degrees of movement is ideal for a day 1 pitch that should deteriorate for day 5, so clearly 0.83 is ridiculous.

The pitch will probably improve rather than deteriorate.

 

[AJ_2000]

Lots of talk that day 2 is harder than day 1 with how the pitch has been playing in the shield. If thats the case than my day 3 tickets are ****ed

 

[The hands of stone]

Welcome to my world…doesn’t happen anymore.

Do whatever feels comfy but don’t forget to slog as many thru the leg side as you can, before you miss the inevitable straight one.

Yep we got coached to open the face to run the ball through gully early and being a LH work the ball off middle leg through square and to fine leg .
We jokingly called it the reverse 'V' .
I hated it .

Was ok on a road or the better premier tracks but going back to club cricket it seriously mucked you up and took ages to sort out.

This was 20 odd years ago so not new and the flow on is now ingrained down the levels .

 

[western royboy]

Lots of talk that day 2 is harder than day 1 with how the pitch has been playing in the shield. If thats the case than my day 3 tickets are ****ed

They definitely worthless

 

[JimmyBC]

This isn’t good for Test cricket, they had to do something because Tests at one point were to in favour of the batsmen but it’s now too far in the other direction.

We just had a 5 day test in Adelaide with a result & people here were whinging about the pitch not doing enough throughout the 5 days..

 

[boncer34]

They definitely worthless

We'll get past today

 

[HirdsTheWord]

what's the consensus on the pitch?

doing too much or just bad batting?

commentators don't seem to think its that bad, but its definitely in the bowlers favour.

 

[JimmyBC]

what's the consensus on the pitch?

doing too much or just bad batting?

commentators don't seem to think its that bad, but its definitely in the bowlers favour.

McGrath reckons it's doing too much & they didn't shave enough off the top.

 

[Borisdog]

The curators have zero responsibily here. All on the horrible batting.

George has a sober opinion of the pitch. He does seem a bit worn down by thiis series though, it could be a bout of ennui.

It was certainly lively and I thought it actually did more for us with the ball than when they bowled.

Now that is almost certainly length, the Poms dead set STILL haven't worked that out. They bowled well in parts but just can't sustain it.

I think there were more Aussie batsmen got themselves out than Poms. Carey and Weatherald in particular.

Man, how about we put the leg glance away for a bit when there's a leg slip in. Travis Head is another one who needs to put that shot away, it didn't get him out but I shut my eyes every time there's a ball in that area to him. Steve Smith appears to have worked out that the leg glance is a zero sum game with a leg slip in. It can't take that much analysis surely.

Instinctive? Maybe. But not too many players give catching practice to the slips, and, to me, this is what's happening with the leg slip. The Poms have got a few cheap wickets with that ball/position this series.

Carey is a wonderful batsman but, let's be honest, he has a spectacular talent for getting out dumb.

 

[Osho]

Rob Keys making apologies, sort of. What a large noggin', geewizz, must be at least 8 kilos!

 

[Osho]

Man, how about we put the leg glance away for a bit when there's a leg slip in.

Bloody oath!

 

[sherb]

Freddie around the wicket to Gilly made me realise we were actually mortal. And I’m trouble

Gilchrist's batting really got found out that series, and was a significant contributor to us losing imo.

 

[sherb]

The pitch is crap, 20 wickets shouldn't be falling day 1 of a ****ing Test.

Blaming the pitch is just excusing ****house batting (for the most part).

 

[sherb]

Very much the Greig Chappell way of batting. Playing only in the arch between mid off and mid on until you get your eye in.
A bit different to Harry Brook’s first ball.

A hybrid?

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Yep I mean there’s a bit in it but nothing today told me it was unplayable. It’s certainly not an all out 152 and all out 110 pitch

With semi-competent batting it was a 200+ pitch, with average Test batting 250+. Especially with Carse giving 40 freebies for no threat.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

In 2017-18 it was a total pudding.

In 2018-19 it was just flat.

In 2024-25 it was sporting, but still possible to make good totals on.

In 2025-26 we now apparently have extravagant seam movement.

The thing that puzzles me is that the GABBA 2022/23 & SCG 2024/25 pitches both facilitated considerable seam movement AND had more even (EDIT: uneven) bounce to boot, and yet neither led to 20 wicket days (the former came close, though). What gives?

There was some ordinary batting and some very good bowling, but surely that wasn't the only reason?

90+% of the reason.

 

[Bedi]

McGrath reckons it's doing too much & they didn't shave enough off the top.

Needed someone out there with a whipper snipper. Watching from the nose bleeds those green tuffs were very prominent

 

[beatnik]

‘hilarious and smart’ for schoolboys, much the same as fart jokes and The Footy Show.

Did you read the post you replied to?

‘Hilarious and smart’ referred to the strategy, not the content (see also ‘elite-tier mind games’)

My only reference to the content of Marnus’ chat was: ‘nonsensical, monotonous diatribe’

Were you being lazy or disingenuous?