The fourth Test between Australia and England ended within a couple of days at the MCG. ICC has rated the pitch ‘unsatisfactory’, and it was awarded one demerit point. Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar wrote in his column that if it had been someone else whole world would have “broken loose.”
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“If there was a pitch like that anywhere else in the world (read India), then all hell would have broken loose. Not surprisingly, many have come to the defence of the curator, sorry, Director of Turf, and suggested it was an honest mistake in leaving so much grass on the pitch. It’s exactly like in the old times that whenever an English and Australian umpire made wrong decisions, then it was a ‘human error’, while mistakes made by the sub-continent umpires was ‘cheating.’” wrote Gavaskar in his column for Mid-Day.
“Even today, despite the ICC panel of umpires officiating in games, a mistake made by them is often mentioned with their name and country suggesting that it was incompetence or more, while similar mistakes by umpires from the so-called developed countries gets overlooked as if it was insignificant to the result of the match,” said Gavaskar
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Match referee Jeff Crowe has said the pitch was “unsatisfactory”. “The MCG pitch was too much in favour of the bowlers,” Crowe said. “With 20 wickets falling on the first day, 16 on the second day, and no batter even reaching a half-century, the pitch was ‘unsatisfactory’ as per the guidelines, and the venue gets one demerit point.”
Curator Matthew Page admitted that he was in a state of shock over how the pitch his team had prepared played out. “I’ve never been involved in a Test match like it and hopefully I’m not involved in a Test match like it again,” Page said to the media. “We know this hasn’t gone as we planned. We will look at what we need to do to improve.”
Page said that while the Test match in itself was ‘captivating’, his team didn’t do enough to ensure that the game went on long enough. “I was in a state of shock after the first day,” said Page. “We’re obviously disappointed that it’s gone two days. We produced a Test that was captivating, but it hasn’t gone long enough. We’ll learn from that and make sure we get it right next year.”