Did the Perth Stadium surface contribute to two star bowlers getting injured?
The Perth Stadium surface has again come under fire after both New Zealand and Australia lost key bowlers on the first two days of the first Test.
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The Perth Stadium surface has once again been thrust into the spotlight after two key injuries on the opening two days of the mouthwatering Test series between Australia and New Zealand.
Both teams lost crucial cogs to their bowling attack, with fast bowlers Lockie Ferguson (New Zealand) and Josh Hazlewood (Australia) forced from the field during their bowling stints.
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Ferguson won’t bowl again in this Test and is in doubt for the remainder of the series, while Australia is fearing the worst after Hazlewood was sent for scans on Friday night.
Speaking after day one, New Zealand fast bowler Neil Wagner outlined the difficult conditions fast bowlers were facing in Perth.
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“It was pretty tough, the ground was pretty hard, the wicket was quite so you are running off a hard ground to soft wicket which is sometimes a little the opposition in New Zealand,” he told reporters.
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“It was tough graft, coming into different conditions you have to try and adapt as quick as you can, it took a bit of time from the nets to the middle so I guess it’s one of those things, you have to sum up conditions and adapt.
“There’s nothing new to us, just adapting.”
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AFL great David King lashed the awful Perth Stadium during 2019, dubbing it ‘Syndesmosis Stadium’ after the unprecedented number of injuries during the winter.
Both West Coast and Fremantle, the two clubs which call Optus Stadium home, moved training sessions away from the venue after citing the hard surface throughout 2019.
But as King stressed, it wasn’t just the Eagles who were affected.
The dual North Melbourne premiership player suggested injuries to Dyson Heppell (Essendon), Jesse Hogan (Fremantle), Luke Dahlhaus (Geelong), Rory Lobb (Fremantle) and Alex Pearce (Fremantle) could all be attributed to playing on the hard Optus Stadium surface.
“Is it just an outlier? Is it just a bad year? Or do we have to concede that this stadium is not coping?” King said on SEN in July.
Australia’s clash with New Zealand is just the second Test match ever at the newly build Perth Stadium.
Originally published as Did the Perth Stadium surface contribute to two star bowlers getting injured?