Australia v India, 3rd Test, Melbourne, 26-30 December, 2018

Before the Test the word from the occasionally-wise was that neither Starc nor Haze was bowling all that well and Cummins was bowling best of the three (but couldn't buy a wicket). The numbers are catching up at last.

AgarWal did OK for a first up effort, like a couple of earlier debutants called Agar and Walters....

India to score 500+ & Australia to be bowled out twice by tea on day four.

Pudge 50 - this is looking ominous

Well that was a wasted referral

The tight arses at the Melbourne Cricket Club need to dig up the drop-in wicket square outside the ground and start again with soil from Adelaide or Perth. ABC Grandstand suggested putting the Adelaide drop-in wicket from T1 on a semi immediately after the Test and transporting it to Melbourne.

What a qunt of a wicket for exciting cricket.

Oz blow a laughable review when Lyon jags one back 45 degrees, with those angles was always either missing the lot or hitting outside the line....Cummins back after a few overs of standard military-medium mush from Mishmash

Drop in pitches will be the death of Test Cricket.

Big Dog wrote:Drop in pitches will be the death of Test Cricket.

Disagree, Mr Dog.

The drop-ins at Adelaide and Perth both produced wonderful Tests. It's the soil that makes up the Melbourne square that is the problem.

The pigheaded old qunts at the MCC refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem. I hope the ICC bans the MCG from Test Cricket for a year (which they can do if a ground scores 2 "poors" in a row). That'll sort 'em out.

So which finishes first - this innings, or the whole Test in NZ?

apparently it is being dug up at the end of the season

Ima drops a diving toughie off Coli from a wide Koo ball.

Nath wrote:apparently it is being dug up at the end of the season

TFFT.

Summation of Day 1

Costly drop from Paine near the end off Kohli. Moribund surface again. Think Bancroft has thrown Warner under the bus.

215/2 in 89 overs? New pitch asap i think. More ammunition for getting test matches modernised.

Red wrote:Costly drop from Paine near the end off Kohli. Moribund surface again. Think Bancroft has thrown Warner under the bus.

Still don't think we are getting the full story

whitburn wrote:215/2 in 89 overs? New pitch asap i think. More ammunition for getting test matches modernised.

to only sit through 4 days of boring cricket instead of 5? If this was a 4 day match, our bowlers would have really been cooked.

Did not watch a ball and heard only bits of coverage on the radio. Sounds like no-one needed their heart pills.

Nath wrote:apparently it is being dug up at the end of the season

So, is this the same pitch as used in the ashes test?

Basil wrote:

Nath wrote:apparently it is being dug up at the end of the season

So, is this the same pitch as used in the ashes test?

No. It is dug up each year.

The same duffer prepared the autobahn at the WACA last year. He has Farked up big time. The first two Shield games he prepped were sporting and results oriented, good for bat and ball. The third was a road as is this.

Ban the MCG!!!

skully wrote:Ban the MCG!!!

Sack the Warpy curator. Australian wickets should not be curated by foreigners. Where's Minster Spudhead? Shirley this 'curator' can be found comfortable accommodation on Nauru or Manus. He can share a bunkroom with three other foreigners in the Marsh bane of Satan brothers and cbnlg.

Quality ton by the Poonjabber.

Aus has beaten Coli's bat a few times this morning but Poony looks impassable.

Decent article about MCG in The Roar.

"If the Perth pitch was ‘average’, the MCG is diabolical.

The time for excuses has passed. In fact, justifications were already stale last summer.

On Boxing Day, the MCG monumentally failed to provide a competitive wicket at a key juncture in the Test summer – a failure that has spectacularly halted the momentum of an otherwise brilliant series.

Most are sick of talking about the 22-yard strip of grass in the middle of Australia’s biggest stadium, namely because in no other sport do playing conditions overtake the action as the main narrative of the day. But it has, yet again, as the pitch played depressingly to form: not enough bounce and lateral movement for the bowlers, and not enough pace for the batsmen to free their arms.

The result? A turgid two-wicket day where the run-rate finished on 2.4 in front of 73,000 fans who deserved so much more. After the ICC rated the brilliant Perth Stadium wicket as ‘average’, most can’t wait for the adjective they’ll use for the MCG strip.

Firstly, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way: yes, creating a good cricket wicket for five days is difficult. Yes, drop-in wickets are tough to master (even though Adelaide and Perth seem to have nailed it). And yes, there are soil and clay intricacies at the MCG that are indecipherable to most, but have plagued the ground in recent years.

Yes, yes, yes. We’ve heard it all. But like the politician who speaks with deliberately complicated jargon to brush over shortcomings, it doesn’t change the end result. And that result is a distinct failure for all cricket fans.

The public don’t care that the new MCG drop-ins will be good in ‘three to five years’. They could hardly be bothered that a ‘highly-credentialed’ curator has been appointed. And they sure as hell couldn’t give a stuff about drainage and sand and concrete and pitch trays.

The only reason a cursory interest is shown in pitch technology is through a desperation to watch good quality test cricket. And they want to know how a world-class facility can provide a surface so unfavourable to that.

etc, etc..."

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The MCC needs rogering with a bale of MCG pitch straw.