No, still a traditional pitch square for the time beimg.
Being playable isn’t the issue. A Test match is supposed to be an even contest between bat and ball. If you think that was then that’s borderline delusion.
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It’s hard to get that balance right between bat and ball.
Ideally, you’d like the pitch to give a bit of assistance to the bowlers in the first session or two, and then flatten out nicely into a good batting deck on Days 2 and 3. Then on Day 4 it starts to take spin and for pace bowlers there starts to be a bit of uneven bounce and the wicket becomes a bit two paced. So that on Day 5, the team batting last has a lowish run chase of under 200 but on an increasingly tricky surface. So there’s something for everyone there, and the toss doesn’t affect the outcome like it often does.
At least Cricket Australia and Channel 9 will be happy it went the full 5 days. If the Test was over in 3 days with no team making more than 200 in any innings, you’d see more complaints there than with this one.
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You won’t find the batsman complaining, credit to England in that case, who performed better. Would’ve won had it not been for rain during 2nd last day.
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Not sure about that tbh. There could have been 2 more days and probably still wouldn’t of had a result.
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Finally! Although some rain is predicted on Monday according to the BOM.
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The sooner we move to astroturf for pitches, the better.
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And tomorrow morning / early aftenoon apparently.
And in typical Sydney summer fashion, right now at the SCG, not much happening at all 
Didn’t they lose most of day 4 last week in Melbourne?
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After the first two days were glorious, including Boxing Day with 90,000 and 1.3m
Out of interest, did you round both those numbers up?
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Obviously.
just a FYI…
sweet!
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A year round dedicated channel? Strewth!
*As of July this year, Sky Sports in the UK has a “Sky Sports Cricket” channel and a few others dedicated to particular genres of sport.
*Fox Sports here in Australia already has channels dedicated to the AFL and NRL (by far Australia’s two most popular Winter sports) in Fox Footy and Fox League respectively.
*Cricket is by far Australia’s most popular Summer sport.
With all of that in mind, I can’t say I’m surprised that Foxtel would be looking to set up a “Fox Cricket” channel (depending on how the next broadcast rights deal goes, of course).
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Marvellousssss effort that!!
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Forget England for the moment, the way the South African bowlers are going against India that quartet of Philander, Steyn, Morkel and Rabada will be more than a handful against Australia next month, notwithstanding Australia have an excellent record in South Africa in tests post apartheid.
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Don’t forget Maharaj! He’s had a fantastic start to his test career.
That should be a cracking series IMO, so glad it is a 4 test series.
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