It is very rare for a Test pitch curator to front a press conference the day after a match to explain his work.
The MCG’s Matt Page, alongside his boss, Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) CEO Stuart Fox, did so voluntarily at 9am on what would have been day three of the Boxing Day Test.
It had the air of a criminal proceeding. Page was unrecognisable initially, emerging not in his day-to-day work wear but in his MCC polo and scarcely worn chinos like a convicted felon to explain his actions on the steps of the courthouse.
It was brutally unfair on a curator that has done outstanding work on this ground in recent years. And full credit to him, he answered every question asked in detail. The first and most obvious one being why did he leave 10mm of grass on this pitch when 7mm had produced a stunning five-day epic last year against India?
“We had a lot of hot weather leading into last year, which makes it a lot easier for us to control our moisture leading in,” Page said. “So we left more moisture in the top of the pitch last year to … provide that contest early up in the game.
“We had some cooler weather at the back end of the game [last year], but we felt that we had the balance leading into that game, really, really good. We saw five days of really captivating cricket, which is what we’re trying to produce here with every Test pitch this year.
“We’ve gone in with 10mm [here]. We knew we were going to get a lot of hot weather at the back end of the game [this year].”
With the warmer weather forecast, there were concerns the pitch would become too flat without the grass left on.
“I guess our issues here with [no] deterioration and pitches getting very flat has been well documented,” Page said. “We’re really conscious of that. We don’t want to go back to where we were in 2017 and our grass is vitally important to what we do. We don’t get inconsistent bounce, we don’t get deterioration in our pitches.
“We’re trying to balance that contest between bat and ball over the four or five days, to provide that captivating Test for all. We left it longer because we knew we were going to get [hotter] weather at the back end, that we knew where we needed our grass at.
“You look back at it, and you go, well, it’s favoured the bowlers too much days one [and] two. Now, if that doesn’t happen, then we set ourselves up really good for day three, day four.”
Page has done wonders with the MCG pitch since the dark days of 2017 when Alastair Cook literally batted for longer than the 2025 Test match lasted. Cook was out there for 144.1 overs, remaining unbeaten on 244, while this game was completed in 142 overs with no individual reaching 50.
“Back in 2017 we sat down as an organisation with Cricket Australia and Cricket Victoria, and we decided what do we want our characteristic to be? And that was pace, bounce, seam movement,” Page said. “If we don’t have seam movement here at the MCG we become very dull, very lifeless and very flat, which is no good for the players. It’s not good for the spectators, and it’s no good for the game.
We’ve produced a Test that’s been captivating, but it hasn’t gone long enough, and we’ll take ownership of that
Matt Page, MCG curator
“We’ve gone too far with this one and obviously we’re very, very disappointed that it’s only gone two days.”
Visitors from England often muse as to why groundsmen are called curators in Australia. The nomenclature appears quite fitting in the aftermath of another two-day Test in this series. It is an inexact science that is part art as well.
“If you look at the Test match last year, India batted poorly on the last day,” Head said. “We get seven wickets in the last session on day five when it looks like it’s going to a draw. And then this question marks around is, are we going too far the other way? So I feel for him, it’s bloody tough.
“You leave one or two millimetres on with high-quality bowling, and you find yourself short. And you take two or three mill off with high-quality batting, and you leave yourself [exposed] the other way.”
As far as the science goes, Page took a leaf from former England and current Melbourne Stars coach Peter Moores when asked if he needed to rethink his decision-making on grass heights based on batters playing in a far more attacking manner than years past.
“The game’s changed, and the game will continue to change, and we need to adapt to that,” Page said. “We’ll look at all the data. And there’s a lot of data to unpack. How much seam movement were we getting on day one? Actually our seam numbers are not too dissimilar to what they were last year, and they’re actually less than what we had against Pakistan [in 2023].
“Probably the biggest difference with us was the bounce and if you’ve got seam movement and you get bounce, then it makes it really difficult for the batters.
“The cooler conditions leading in surprised me. We actually had more bounce on day one from the data that we’ve seen than what we had last year, which is really surprising, because the weather was really cool. We had rain on Sunday. We had 25mm of rain here. The pitch was under covers all day. So to get more bounce this year than we had last year surprised us.”
That is what makes Page’s job arguably more difficult than any other curator in Australia. Unlike Perth or Adelaide where the weather is very consistent, Melbourne is not. Crowded House wrote a hit song about Melbourne’s Four Seasons in One Day.
Page can’t rely on the same weather every Boxing Day to roll out the same grass height every year. His drop-in pitches, unlike Perth, will never crack under a blazing hot sun, nor provide spin like Adelaide. He has to marry the grass height to the weather to try and keep the bowlers in the game and avoid a repeat of 2017.
“Our pitches are not going to be consistent,” Page said. “They’re going to be different every year because of those challenges with the weather. We’ve had pitches at different [grass] heights. You go back to 2019 against New Zealand, we had a pitch at 12mm. Ashes 2021 we were at 11mm. Pakistan we were at eight. We were seven last year. This year, we’ve gone to 10. So every year is different, and the margins are very small.
“But in the back of your mind, you’re always trying to provide that contest. We’re about trying to provide captivating Test cricket, that balance between bat and ball and going four or five days.
“We’ve produced a Test that’s been captivating, but it hasn’t gone long enough, and we’ll take ownership of that.”
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo