MUMBAI: The International Cricket Council has given a ‘satisfactory’ rating for the seamer-friendly, grassy pitch at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the fifth and final deciding Test of the recently-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Cricket Australia informed in a media release on Wednesday.
The match saw Australia beat India by six wickets inside three days. With their pacers -particularly Scott Bolland who took a match haul of 10 for 76 (4-31 & 6-45) firing on all cylinders on a green top, Australia, who were dismissed for just 181 in their first innings, bowled out India cheaply for 185 & 157.
On Tuesday, former India skipper Dilip Vengsarkar had criticised the quality of the SCG pitch, calling it “substandard” while talking to TOI.
While Australia’s ace batsman Steve Smith said that he hadn’t batted on a Sydney pitch with so much grass in his life, the legendary Sunil Gavaskar was heavily critical of the wicket for the fifth, final and deciding match of the series too.
After 26 wickets fell in the first two days of the SCG Test, Gavaskar had slammed the pitch and said the pitch is “not ideal” for a Test match. “When I saw the pitch I did say the cows could have gone and grazed on it. This is not the ideal Test match pitch that you want because you want it to go into a fourth or the fifth day. Unless there is rain, I don’t see us being here on day four.”
Vengsarkar had stressed that it was easy to criticise batsmen for failing to score runs, but the fact remains that pitches such as that at the SCG are “substandard” and “very difficult to bat on, with the ball flying everywhere, and the batting becoming virtually a lottery.” “The Sydney pitch was heavily loaded in favour of pacers. It’s very difficult to bat on these kinds of wickets. It’s easy to criticise the batsmen for not scoring runs, but the fact is that the wicket was indeed substandard. There was so much grass on the pitch that the cows could’ve grazed on it.”
On Tuesday, CA informed that the ICC had released its pitch ratings for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with the Perth Stadium, Adelaide Oval, Gabba and the MCG pitches all receiving the highest ‘very good’ rating and the SCG had been given the second top category ‘satisfactory’.
The ratings system was revamped in 2023 to reduce the number of ratings from six to four – very good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory and unfit.
Venues are given demerit points if they receive unsatisfactory or unfit ratings.
Th CA release quoted Peter Roach, CA Head of Cricket Operations and Scheduling as saying: “We are delighted by the quality of pitches produced for the NRMA Insurance Border-Gavaskar Trophy series and grateful for all the hard work of the curators and venues across the country. We encourage pitches that bring out the unique characteristics of that venue and this has long been a feature of Australian cricket. We strongly believe that this is one of the reasons that Test cricket is so popular in Australia.
“We don’t look to prepare wickets that favour the home side or suit our situation in a series. What we seek is a good contest between bat and ball and pitches that are likely to produce a result. Weather obviously plays a significant part in preparation and we know that even our most skilled curators are challenged at times by adverse weather. The SCG has been striving to bring out their unique characteristics of early pace and bounce before the pitch wears and spins. This year was a step in the right direction to achieving this which provided an exciting finish to the Border Gavaskar Trophy series and bodes well for the Ashes summer in 2025-26.”
“The series also emphasised the benefits of playing first-class cricket at major venues. It allows our curators to become more familiar with the different challenges that go into preparing wickets in different weather conditions, and also allows players to enter the Test team familiar with the conditions they will confront,” Roach said.
