MELBOURNE: Ben Stokes and Steve Smith agreed on Saturday a Test match ending in two days was “not want you want”, joining some of the biggest names in the game who attacked the state of the Melbourne Cricket Ground pitch.

Twenty wickets tumbled on day one of the fourth Test between Australia and England on Friday, with the hosts dismissed for 152 and the tourists just 110. Another 16 were taken on day two, with the high-profile clash all over within 142 overs inside two days.

England completed a four-wicket win late on day two for their first test victory in the country in 15 years but skipper Stokes was scathing of the surface, even after his batters chased down 175 runs for victory.

Stokes told reporters his feedback to the match referee would not be the best for a pitch that had a centimetre of grass left by the curator on the morning of day one.

“When you go out there and you’re faced with those conditions, you’ve got to crack on and deal with it,” Stokes told reporters. “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.”

Australian captain Smith said the 10 millimetres depth of grass made it difficult for batting with too much sideways movement off the seam for the bowlers.

Last year’s Melbourne Test between Australia and India had about 7mm of grass left on the wicket initially and lasted deep into day five.

“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 told reporters, offering a lukewarm defence of MCG curator Matt Page, saying it was a delicate balance for ground staff to strike.

“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.”

But with day three tickets sold out at the 100,000-seat stadium, Saturday was a bad day for the local game.

“Obviously finances aren’t great,” said Smith. “I think it was a sell-out tomorrow if we got there. So, yeah, disappointing for those (fans) that wanted to come along.”

Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg said short Tests were bad for business with the carnage on Boxing Day the most wickets to fall on the first day of an Ashes Test since 1909.

It followed 19 wickets being taken 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,” he said. “So I would like to see a slightly broader balance between the bat and the ball.”

A host of former greats have been critical of the Melbourne pitch with former England captain Michael Vaughan on Saturday calling it “a joke”. “This is selling the game short,” he added, while another ex-England skipper Alastair Cook branded it “an unfair contest”.

Curators in Australia are traditionally independent when it comes to preparing pitches, both from captains and Cricket Australia.

Greenberg suggested a more interventionist approach might be needed.

“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.”

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2025