Ashes 2025, Boxing Day Test: Ben Stokes, Steve Smith Criticizes MCG Pitch After Two-Day Contest

Captains Ben Stokes and Steve Smith criticised the MCG pitch after the Boxing Day Test ended inside two days. As 36 wickets fell in under 142 overs, Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg said such short Tests are bad for business. 

Ben Stokes and Steve Smith agreed on Saturday that a Test match ending in two days was “not what you want”, joining several big names in criticising the state of the Melbourne Cricket Ground pitch.

Twenty wickets fell on day one of the fourth Test between Australia and England on Friday, with the hosts dismissed for 152 and the tourists bowled out for 110. Another 16 wickets fell on day two, with the high-profile clash finishing within 142 overs, inside two days.

“When you go out there, and you're faced with those conditions, you've got to crack on and deal with it,” said England skipper Stokes after his side won by four wickets to end a 15-year drought on Australian soil. “But being brutally honest, that's not really what you want. You know, Boxing Day Test match, you don't want a game finishing in less than two days. It's not ideal, but you can't change it once you start the game and you've just got to play what's in front of you.”

10 Millimetres Depth of Grass Made Batters Challenging

Australian captain Smith said the 10 millimetres depth of grass made batting extremely difficult, with too much sideways movement off the seam. “It was tricky. No one could really get in. I think when you see 36 wickets across two days, that's probably too much,” he said. “It probably did a little bit more than they wanted it to. Maybe if we dropped it down to eight millimetres, it would be about right.”

Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg said short Tests were bad for business, noting that the Boxing Day carnage marked the most wickets to fall on the first day of an Ashes Test since 1909. It followed 19 wickets falling on day one of the series opener in Perth, which also ended in two days and cost Cricket Australia millions of dollars in lost revenue.

“A simple phrase I'd use is short Tests are bad for business. I can't be much more blunt than that,” Greenberg said. “So I would like to see a slightly broader balance between the bat and the ball.”

Former England Cricketers Slam MCG Pitch

Several former greats also criticised the Melbourne pitch, with ex-England captain Michael Vaughan calling it “a joke” on Saturday. “This is selling the game short,” he said, while another former England skipper Alastair Cook branded it “an unfair contest”.

Curators in Australia are traditionally independent when it comes to preparing pitches, free from influence by captains and Cricket Australia. However, Greenberg suggested a more interventionist approach might be required.

“It's hard not to get more involved when you see the impact on the sport, especially commercially,” he said. “I'm not suggesting I'll 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.