Revived MCG pitch promises stage fit for a compelling Ashes contest | Geoff Lemon

If curators produce something approaching 2020’s lively pitch, the expected 70,000 crowd could be in a for a Boxing Day treat

Those England supporters who only pay attention to cricket in Australia every four years might be expecting the third Ashes Test to be a certain kind of game. That would be based on England’s last visit to the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2017, for a match played on a pitch so dead that the biggest sporting event in Victoria’s calendar was more a state funeral.

What we saw that year was a horticultural marvel, in that nobody could get anyone out, but equally nobody could score. The batting oozed along in a slurry of mistimed shots, and the chief mode of occasional dismissal seemed to be deliveries chopped onto the stumps. After days of that, the large sign above the Percy Beames bar bearing the ground’s highest score by a visiting player saw Alastair Cook’s 244 regrettably replace the masterpiece 208 by Vivian Richards. At least they both got knighthoods.

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