Stokes, Smith agree two-day Tests not a good look after MCG carnage

MELBOURNE: Ben Stokes and Steve Smith agreed 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.When you go out there and you’re faced with those conditions, you’ve got to crack on and deal with it,” said England skipper Stokes after his side won by four wickets to end a  15-year drought on Australian soil.

“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 ofAustralian 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.

“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 said.

“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.”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”.