Despite criticism following the expensive Ashes series earlier this year, Cricket Australia has ruled out assuming more responsibility over Test pitch preparation, maintaining that local curators are best suited to provide attractive, distinctive surfaces.
The quality of the state pitches came under close examination after the two-day finishes in the Perth and MCG Tests, which cost CA around AU$15 million in income. Short Tests are “bad for business,” according to CA CEO Todd Green.
However, CA is hesitant to choose a centralized strategy in spite of the losses.
“It’s inconceivable that we could ever control much more than we do now. In 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,” CA’s head of operations Peter Roach was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press.
“In Australia, because they’re so different, you could put the best curator in Australia to a different venue and all of a sudden they’re an also-ran for a while. Because they wouldn’t know the characteristics and the climate and how those pitches respond to that,” Roach added.
Les Burdett, a consultant, is being employed by CA to support curators; nevertheless, CA does not specify the type of pitches that must be prepared. However, they advise curators to set up pitches that are at least four days long and provide a fair game between bat and ball without producing boring draws.
According to Roach, rather than creating standard pitches, CA wants states to embrace the distinctive qualities of their stadiums.
“The difference of our pitches across from west to east to north to south is so pronounced and it’s something that we don’t want to change. We think it’s a really good competitive advantage that we don’t want to make our wickets all too similar like we see in some other countries,” Roach said.
“Giving curators the chance to explore their unique characteristics is really important. But with that comes a reasonable amount of risk. It does mean that occasionally we go wrong … But I think our history is pretty good in terms of working with venues to improve them,” he added.
