IND vs AUS: The Perth pitch is likely to retain moisture come match day, effectively ruling out the possibility of major deterioration over the course of five days. (X/Daniel Brettig)
With the focus revolving around a menacing Perth pitch at the Optus Stadium for Australia’s summer-opening first Border Gavaskar Trophy Test against India on Monday, head curator Isaac McDonald said that he does not expect the pitch to produce excessive bounce or cracks over the five days.
Traditionally hailed as the city with the fastest pitches in the world, the surface at the Perth pitch nearby the old WACA ground is expected to hold better than usual said the curator, who does not expect the surface to develop “snake cracks” due to the unusual rain that has hit the venue few days before the game. The pitch was covered for the whole day on Tuesday, cutting down preparation time for the curator.
“Yeah, it’s definitely not traditional Perth Test prep. Yesterday we pretty much lost the whole day of prep with it being under cover. So we kind of saw the forecast early on and we started prep a little bit earlier than we normally would.
“So we’re sitting quite comfortable still. It’d be nice if the sun would pop out and do its job but as of this morning we’re in a good spot, we’re really comfortable as a curating team,” McDonald told media ahead of the series opener beginning on Friday.
The pitch is likely to retain moisture come match day, effectively ruling out the possibility of major deterioration over the course of five days.
“I don’t think the weather is going to make this pitch fall apart. There’ll be some deterioration, grass will stand up during the game and offer that variable bounce but in terms of big snake WACA cracks, unfortunately I don’t think the weather is going to get us there,” said the head curator.
The forecast is clear for Friday as well as the remaining four days but the temperatures are unlikely to increase drastically. McDonald wants the sun to emerge from the clouds at the earliest so that the surface can behave close to its traditional nature.
“I mean everyone talks about the traditional baking of the top. We can kind of manufacture that with more rolling and less water on top if we have to. We’re testing the wicket hour by hour so it’s quite conditions based at the moment.
“So at the moment we’re leaning towards rolling it a bit more on top to get that firmness and that happy medium between bat and ball. But yeah, fingers crossed the sun pops out,” he said.
Pakistan recently bundled out Australia for 140 in an ODI at the Optus Stadium here. The grass cover was expectedly less for a limited overs game, 4mm to be exact. It will be at least double for the India-Australia Test opener.
“We’ve still got to try and get to a point where we think we’re going to be fine by Friday. We’re still in around the ballpark, 8 to 10 mm, was where we were last year as well.”
– With PTI inputs
