MCG pitch drama strengthens SCG case against AFL for drop-in wicket

There would have been a sense of deja vu for the New Zealand cricket side when it touched down in Australia on Friday.

South Africa captain Graeme Smith is bowled by Mitchell Johnson at the SCG in 2009. Smith was batting with a broken hand. Picture: Gregg Porteus

There would have been a sense of deja vu for the New Zealand cricket side when they touched down in Australia at the weekend.

As the players disembarked in Perth, news filtered through that the Sheffield Shield game at the MCG had been abandoned.

Last time the Kiwis were here for a Test series it was their tour game at Blacktown in Sydney’s west that had to be given up. That wicket was as dry as a creek bed and ­almost as consistent.

The MCG wicket for the game against Western Australia had a different problem. Anxious to give it life after some criticism of the previous deck, the curator had left the sprinklers out too long.

The ball made dents in the soft surface that then baked in as the sun began to dry the strip and made life miserable for the visiting batsmen.

It’s not been the best few years for Australian curators, who struggle every year to deal with the vagaries of grass, clay, sun, cloud and ever-increasing demand for their fields. If it’s not AFL finals or rugby matches, it’s rock ’n’ roll bands.

The first Sheffield Shield game of 2019-20 at the SCG had to be moved at the last minute because the strip had not recovered from the heavy traffic caused by the end of the NRL season.

In 2015-16 a game was abandoned at the same venue ­because the outfield was too soft. The next match was moved as well.

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Victorian players were criticised for playing up the slipperiness of the surface in the abandoned game four years ago, but the match referee agreed it was unfit and they went home with the points.

The home side in this week’s debacle will not, however, give up the points to WA as the rule has been changed to split points in an abandoned game so there is no gaming of the situation by the visiting side.

The 2017-18 Ashes Test at the MCG was a crisis and also a bullet dodged. Watching the five dismal days of that match was to see the game at its worst.

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Alastair Cook may have made a record score (244no) but only 24 wickets fell in five days and both captains criticised the wicket. Steve Smith said at the time the match could have gone on for days more and still never reached a conclusion.

Had the match been played in the new year the ground would have been in danger of losing its right to host Tests as the rules changed soon after and demerit points were introduced by the ICC for “poor” pitches.

A Test wicket is a curious thing. It should start as shiny and exciting as a cheap toy at Christmas and be in a similar state of disrepair a few days later.

Cracks are good. Uneven bounce a bonus. Rust is good. Decay to be encouraged.

The strip that hosted the batsmen’s salad days early in the game should be the last place they want to be on days four and five.

There’s nothing better than a wicket that steadily degrades. Should it crumble like the SCG at its best it will spin, and it is no ­coincidence that so many of the better proponents of that craft originate from NSW.

Even this year there is talk of finding a second spinner for the Sydney Test.

A crack can make for a cracking finale too. It was traditionally the WACA where fissures in the earth grew so wide as the game progressed that batsmen had been known to leave their bat lodged in the gap, another time it is said Tony Greig lost his hotel keys filming the pitch report.

The WACA lost its character over the years but in 2009 a crack that opened on the SCG pitch in the latter stages of the Test against South Africa contributed to one of the more dramatic moments of the decade.

Visiting captain Graeme Smith endeared himself to a generation of Australian fans by taking the field on the last day with a broken left hand, to try and hold out the man who had broken it, Mitchell Johnson.

The delivery that finished the game was unplayable, the drama of the afternoon unrepeatable.

The vicissitudes of weather, leather and pitches are essential elements in the glorious uncertainties of cricket.

Traditionalists at the SCG will have let out a sigh of relief this week as events at the MCG took the wind from the sails of the AFL and its push to have a drop-in at the home of the Swans.

If cricket was, or had ever been, weakening on the topic of drop-ins at the SCG there writ large was a warning that transportable wickets are as problematic if not more so than those that hibernate in winter and rise slowly from their slumber in the summer months.

It’s a fraught business, making wickets.

Damian Hough conceded this year that he never sleeps well in the lead-up to Adelaide Test and he is an anxious mess until the first few balls have been bowled.

If there is good bounce and carry he can breathe again, if the deliveries die on the way to the keeper so does he.

Even the most experienced ­curator can be caught out as events this week have shown.