Melbourne Ashes fourth test pitch judged unsatisfactory by ICC

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Melbourne Ashes fourth test pitch judged unsatisfactory by ICC

1 January 2026

Test matches in cricket are generally meant to last the best part of five days. Fans of the game expect to see individual batters clock up scores of one-hundred plus runs. Maybe two-hundred plus, if they get on a roll. Brian Lara, a West Indies cricketer, once made four-hundred runs in a test match.

Last week, during the fourth test of the Ashes Series, not one batter from either the Australian or English teams managed to notch more than fifty runs. Twenty wickets fell on the first day of this match. That means both teams were bowled out on the same day.

This sort of thing happens — it’s a funny old game after all — but it is not something anyone expects of the top, first class, teams of any cricketing nation.

Last Tuesday the International Cricket Council (ICC) rated the pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) as “unsatisfactory”, which is the second lowest rating a cricket pitch can receive.

This was on account of the one-centimetre long grass on the pitch, which seemed to suit bowlers more than batters, and explains the regularity with which wickets tumbled. Usually, the grass on test pitches is shorter, but on occasions has exceeded one centimetre.

While the length of the grass contributed to the low scoring game, commentators also said the quality of batting left much to be desired. England went on to win the truncated two day test match, their first victory in nearly fifteen years on Australian soil.

The fifth, and final, Ashes test commences in Sydney on Sunday 4 January 2026.

While Australia has already retained the Ashes, with a three to one lead in the five game series, I’m hoping England win in Sydney. That would make the score line three to two, and look, at least on paper, that this summer’s test series had been some sort of contest.

Cooper Not Out, by Justin Smith

1 February 2022

It’s a funny old game cricket, some days a player’s skill sees them soar to heights not seen before, other day’s fortune roundly turns on even the best. Then there’s Roy Cooper, a police sergeant who’s been a member of the rural Australian Penguin Hill Cricket Club for years. He’s never scored a century, nor for that matter, gone much passed double figures.

Nor has he ever taken a wicket, let alone a hat-trick, or a ten wicket haul. But as local schoolgirl Cassie Midwinter discovers, Roy has a claim to fame, one seemingly overlooked by the statistics mad doyens of the game: he has not once been dismissed while playing. After decades at the crease, Roy has never been bowled, stumped, caught, nor run-out.

It is a feat Cassie brings to the attention of a renowned cricket writer known as Don Garrett, who thinks the national men’s cricket team could benefit from Roy’s talents. Australia are being trounced by the West Indies in the 1984 summer test series, and Don sets about bringing Roy’s achievement to the notice of the team selectors, in Cooper Not Out (published by Penguin Books Australia, 18 January 2022), by Melbourne based writer and journalist Justin Smith.

Will the unthinkable happen? Will a life-long club player find himself pacing onto the pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in a bid to reverse the fortunes of the men’s test team? It might seem like a pipe dream, but as they say, it’s a funny old game. But Roy isn’t the only one with unnoticed accomplishments, and there’s much more to Don, the sports writer, than meets the eye.

The coin toss in cricket, should it change?

6 January 2022

Haris Aziz, Scientia Associate Professor at UNSW’s School of Computer Science and Engineering, has proposed a new way of managing the customary coin toss that precedes a cricket match. Presently the winner of the toss decides whether their team will bat or bowl first.

Depending on factors such as the state of the playing field, and anticipated weather conditions during the course of play — which can have an impact on the outcome of the game — the winner of the toss can have a substantial advantage.

Under this method, the toss takes place as normal, but instead of the winning captain choosing whether to bat or bowl first – and thus immediately gaining a potentially strong position – the losing captain would instead make a proposal. The losing captain would make his own determination on how many runs advantage he feels would be gained by batting first. For example, in a Test match, he may feel that a pitch that looks easy to bat on for the opening couple of days but might later produce turn, is effectively ‘worth’ an extra 100 runs to the team that bats first. To counter that advantage he then proposes an offer to the captain who won the toss, by way of a choice. Either bat first and give up 100 runs, or choose to bowl and take the 100 bonus runs for his own team.

I’d be interested to see this in action. In the meantime, in regards to the men’s cricket series currently in progress, well, anything that might for a slightly more even contest, I say.