Why 10 millimetres of MCG grass made batting a nightmare in the Boxing Day Test

A few millimetres of grass on the MCG pitch may have contributed to a multimillion-dollar loss for Cricket Australia following the two-day Ashes Test that ended on Saturday.

How can such a small thing matter so much in a game of cricket? Why is everyone so worked up about the length of the grass, how does it make life difficult for batters, and what does it mean for the famous Melbourne stadium?

Why the extra grass?

Melbourne Cricket Club curator Matt Page chose to leave 10 millimetres of grass on the pitch for the Boxing Day Test, which can run for up to five days and was expected to attract about 90,000 fans each day.

Last year he left seven millimetres for the Test between Australia and India, a classic contest that went deep into the fifth day and set a new five-day attendance record of 373,691 fans, plus millions watching the broadcast.

The extra grass for the fourth Ashes Test made it easier for bowlers to move the ball sideways. Due to that, combined with questionable batting from both teams, 20 wickets fell on day one and the match finished late on day two.

This meant CA had to refund more than 90,000 ticket holders. It left broadcasters fuming and as disappointed cricket fans scrambled to change their plans.

So, why the extra grass?

Page explained his decision was based on weather conditions, and knowledge that MCG pitches typically don’t deteriorate a lot over the course of a match. When pitches break up, batting becomes harder. If they hold together, it becomes more difficult to get a result.

“We left it longer because we knew we were going to get weather at the back end that we knew where we needed our grass at,” Page said.

“You look back at it and go, ‘It’s favoured the bowlers too much days one and two’. If that doesn’t happen, we set ourselves up really good for days three and four.”

So, he acknowledged, it was a miscalculation. It’s worth noting he has left more grass on the pitch for previous Boxing Day Tests: 12mm for the Test against New Zealand in 2019, 11mm against England in 2021 and 8mm against Pakistan in 2022. Those matches lasted three days or longer.

“We don’t want to go back to where we were in 2017, and our grass is vitally important to what we do,” Page said.

The 2017 Boxing Day Ashes Test ended in a deathly dull draw and prompted the MCC to replace its drop-in pitches and the base they sit in. Only 24 wickets fell in five days. No one wants to see that.

What difference does the grass make?

Put simply, more grass equals more sideways movement off the pitch.

”The length of the grass externally means that the ball interacts with the surface; therefore it’s going to have a chance to move more – that’s the fundamental physics,” former Australian fast bowler and NSW and Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson said.

“So the longer the grass, the more chance as [the ball] pitches, something will interact with the seam, and it will be more likely to deviate. That makes it harder to bat on.”

Australia captain Steve Smith said it wasn’t just the length of the grass that made batting hard, but a “furry” thickness that contributed to unpredictable bounce.

“This one, it probably started quite slow. Not tennis bally [bounce], normally that’s from the moisture of the wicket,” Smith said.

“The thickness of the grass, the ball was sitting in the grass, if that makes sense to you. I felt in the first innings I almost chipped one to mid-on playing a defensive shot that sat on the grass.

“It was tricky to drive the ball because [of] how much the seam was catching the grass and stopping.”

In the first innings, Smith was bowled by a Josh Tongue ball that moved sharply and late. England opener Ben Duckett was caught fending a ball that held up in the surface, illustrating Smith’s point.

Who is Matt Page?

Page was recruited to the MCG role from the Western Australia Cricket Association in November 2017. He had worked on the WACA pitch and the newly opened Optus Stadium in Perth.

He started at the ’G only a month before the 2017 Ashes Test, which produced a “poor” pitch rating from the International Cricket Council.

It took time – the pitch for the 2018 Test against India was also slow and low – but Page has since earned praise for turning the MCG pitch into the best in the country, and the only Australian venue to have received the top International Cricket Council rating in the past three seasons.

Lawson said he’d been concerned when he heard Smith describe the grass as “furry” on Test eve, but he acknowledged there was no precise formula for preparing a pitch that produces an even contest between bat and ball.

“The joy of the game is that it is not a science, it’s an art. I call it an organic game of willow, leather, wind, sun – all that stuff,” Lawson said.

“It should not be the same everywhere you play.

“If you want the game to go five days, you don’t want it moving a lot off the seam – as this one did. “It’s a lapse of judgment. There’s no doubt about that.”

Page said he heard feedback from players before every Test but “you have to go with your gut feel”.

Where to from here?

The ICC will deliver a pitch rating, but MCC chief executive Stuart Fox has stood by Page and his staff.

Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg told SEN on Saturday that CA had previously taken a hands-off approach to pitch preparation.

The MCG has a big two years ahead headlined by the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand next summer and the150th anniversary Test between Australia and England in March 2027.

“I’m not suggesting we’re going to 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,” Greenberg said.

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