{"id":145668,"date":"2026-03-23T02:24:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=145668"},"modified":"2026-03-23T02:24:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:54:58","slug":"cricket-australia-refuses-to-take-greater-control-over-pitch-preparation-for-home-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=145668","title":{"rendered":"Cricket Australia refuses to take greater control over pitch preparation for home Tests"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Cricket Australia (CA) has decided against taking greater control over the preparation of Test match pitches. Instead, it will continue to let local curators manage their own grounds, even after several matches ended much earlier than expected during the recent Ashes series.<\/p>\n

The matches in Perth and Melbourne both ended in two days, costing CA about AUD 15 million in lost revenue. While CEO Todd Green admitted that quick games are \u201cbad for business,\u201d the organisation believes a \u201cone-size-fits-all\u201d approach wouldn\u2019t work in a country as large as Australia.<\/p>\n

CA\u2019s head of operations, Peter Roach, told the Australian Associated Press<\/i> that managing pitches from a central office is nearly impossible because every region is different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inconceivable that we could ever control much more than we do now,\u201d Roach said. \u201cIn England, you could put in a central curator to go around or New Zealand, or South Africa, because the wickets and the clays and the climates are so similar.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ | ICC rates Melbourne pitch \u2018unsatisfactory\u2019 after Boxing Day Test ends in two days<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Australia, because they\u2019re so different, you could put the best curator in Australia to a different venue and all of a sudden they\u2019re an also-ran for a while. Because they wouldn\u2019t know the characteristics and the climate and how those pitches respond to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

CA currently uses a consultant to help local staff, but it doesn\u2019t give strict orders. It\u2019s target is to have pitches which should last at least four days and provide a fair fight between batters and bowlers.<\/p>\n

Roach emphasised that having different types of pitches across the country is actually a strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference of our pitches across from west to east to north to south is so pronounced and it\u2019s something that we don\u2019t want to change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it\u2019s a really good competitive advantage that we don\u2019t want to make our wickets all too similar like we see in some other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

While giving local curators freedom can lead to mistakes\u2014like the two-day finishes seen recently\u2014CA believes it is worth the gamble to keep the game interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving curators the chance to explore their unique characteristics is really important. But with that comes a reasonable amount of risk,\u201d Roach said. \u201cIt does mean that occasionally we go wrong … But I think our history is pretty good in terms of working with venues to improve them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Published on Mar 23, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Cricket Australia (CA) has decided against taking greater control over the preparation of Test match pitches. Instead, it will continue to let local curators manage their own grounds, even after several matches ended much earlier than expected during the recent Ashes series. The matches in Perth and Melbourne both ended in two days, costing CA…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AFP_88ZJ3CQ.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-BTu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/145669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}