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Smith and Starc give final verdicts on under-fire MCG pitch
SEN • December 28th, 2025 1:24 pm
Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc have had their say on the MCG wicket after the Boxing Day Test lasted just two days, with England winning by four wickets.
With 36 wickets falling in two action packed days, conditions clearly favoured bowling over batting as those with the willow in hand had to deal with immense sideways movement on the green pitch.
MCG curator Matt Page admitted he was really disappointed with the outcome, with the talking point clearly the 10mm of grass left on the deck compared to the 6mm of grass during last year’s Test against India, which lasted five days.
Smith thinks that finding a happy medium somewhere around 8mm may have made a difference, as the pitch offered plenty more than he was expecting.
“It obviously offered a lot, 36 wickets in two days, it offered plenty,” Smith told SEN Cricket.
“Had it been either 2mm shorter or a little less thatchy with 10mm, it might have been alright, but I’m not a groundsman so it’s hard to judge.
“But it did look like it was going to offer a fair amount, probably a little more than I thought it would.
“I think the groundsman is always learning, but he’s produced some pretty good wickets in the last two years.
“I think when I started, we didn’t have too many wickets like this, when I started, the MCG used to be run tickets, but that’s changed a bit over the last four or five years. It’s probably changed more into a better cricket wicket where bat and ball are competing against each other.
“The game’s changed in terms of the aggression batters use… if 10 years ago you saw Harry Brook come out and bat like that, you’d think, ‘What’s going on?!’.
“Brook was the top run scorer for England, and even Travis Head for us in the second innings, it was probably one of those wickets where you had to go a little harder.”
Starc echoed Smith’s comments, although he won’t be dwelling on it much as Australia head to Sydney with a 3-1 lead in hand.
“I guess you saw it start to play a bit truer in the back end of yesterday,” Starc told SEN Cricket.
“Would a couple mm off change the game much? Or was it application? Or even just two good attacks?
“You probably don’t want to see two day Test matches, so they probably got it (the grass on the pitch) slightly too high.
“We saw last week in Adelaide, it was pretty flat and didn’t do a lot unless the ball was hard and new.
“Batters got that one last week, and bowlers got one in their favour probably a bit too much this week.
“I saw last year it was 6 or 7mm, arguably if you make it 8mm, it’s probably a pretty good surface.
“It’s one to not dwell too much on and move on pretty quick.”
