Cricket Australia breaks silence after furore over Melbourne pitch for Ashes: ‘Short Tests bad for business’

When it comes to Test matches that finish inside two or three days, the issues are multifaceted. It’s a bad advertisement for cricket itself; it makes fans with tickets for the remainder of the Test unhappy, and significantly, given the logistics and preparations that go behind hosting a Test match, it becomes a financial problem for cricket boards and organisers.

With the first Test of the Ashes in Perth already having finished inside two days, the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne joined the list as England grabbed the win at the MCG in under two days. With this Test being the most significant event of the Australian sporting summer, particularly when they host England, the lost revenue from Days 3 to 5 might well be pretty substantial.

After nearly 95,000 fans piled into the MCG for Day 1, Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg admitted that this was a headache for the higher-ups in Australian cricket.

The controversial surface saw 20 wickets falls on the first day, and then a further 16 on the second day as England lost 6 wickets chasing down 175. Beyond the result after Australia have already sealed the series, having such a quick and incomplete match has far-reaching consequences.

“I didn’t sleep well last night, put it that way,” said Greenberg on SEN Radio in Australia.

“It was an amazing day of Test cricket, so for that record number of people who were here, boy, they’ve had an experience,” he continued. “But our challenge is to make sure we can continue those experiences day after day. That’s the challenge for all of us.”

‘Can’t be more blunt than that…’

After CA had to push through the Perth Test for the three days of no cricket played, doing so again when gate revenue and fan attendance is so crucial at the biggest cricket stadium in the country is bound to hurt – and Greenberg admitted as much.

“A simple phrase I’d use is short Tests are bad for business. I can’t be much more blunt than that,” he said.

The way to achieve full, competitive, exciting Test matches is by curating pitches which bring about a balance between bat and ball, said Greenberg, with any one field being favoured making it a problem: “So I would like to see a slightly broader balance between the bat and the ball.”

As for what role CA themselves can play in ensuring the ‘bad business’ doesn’t become a consistent issue, Greenberg stated that he would not prompt any sort of directive to curators for stadiums around the country. However, he also added that remaining passive on the matter was not the answer either.

“It’s hard not to get more involved when you see the impact on the sport, especially commercially. I’m not suggesting I’ll go around talking to ground staff, but we do have to have a careful eye on what our expectations are over the course of a summer,” he concluded.