Cricket Aus faces $10M financial storm after second two-day Test match

England’s two-day victory in the Boxing Day Test will cost Cricket Australia as much as $10 million in lost revenue and ticketing refunds, compounding a battered pocketbook after Perth’s 48-hour affair clocked up a $3 million shortfall.

On top of the 90,000 tickets expected to be activated across day three, including more than 20,000 travelling English fans, the Melbourne Cricket Ground will no longer be able to sell merchandise, food, and drinks, all of which will mount on the multi-million dollar loss the bowler-friendly surface at a packed MCG has now led to late in December.

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The only thing that may save things cash-wise for Australian cricket is the fact that as many as 94,199 people were in attendance on the first day of the Test match, marking a high-water mark for Test match attendance on Boxing Day.

There have already been calls for ground curator Matthew Page to be sacked — and quite rightly so, in this Sporting Base writer’s eyes, considering what a mistake he’s made after Perth — after he trotted out a frankly ridiculous 10 millimetre of live grass that killed nearly any chance batters had to dig in for more than a few overs during the Test match.

Now, fair play to Page, he fronted the media to talk about the mishap of a wicket after his mistake, admitting he was in a “state of shock” after the two days. “I’ve never been involved in a Test match like it, and hopefully am never involved in a Test match like it again,” Page told reporters “It was a rollercoaster ride for two days to see everything unfold.”

But beyond Page’s future, Cricket Aus is now scrabbling to deal with this $10 million loss, which could climb to as much as $15 million once the entire series has played out. (Sydney will see its first ball bowled on January 4 this year.)

“A simple phrase I’d use is – short Tests are bad for business. I can’t be much more blunt than that,” said Todd Greenberg, Cricket Australia’s chief executive, when addressing the problematic situation this week.

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“Historically, we have taken a hands-off approach in all of our wicket preparation… but it’s hard not to get more involved when you see the impact on the sport, particularly commercially. With the way batters are batting, and the way the game is evolving, are the preparations of our wickets in lockstep with that?” Greenberg said Sunday.

“If they’re not, how do we make sure that they are so that we can try to balance the commercial imperatives versus the performance?”

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Elsewhere, Australia’s acting captain Steve Smith said it “wasn’t great” to see Cricket Aus hit this hard financially, and spoke out against the wicket. “We saw 36 wickets in two days… that indicates it was a pretty tricky wicket. It probably offered a little bit too much. A lot of the Tests have been played in fast forward, and this one was over in two days, not ideal.”

And former England captain Nasser Hussain said the match was a farce. “I don’t think it’s acceptable,” he told Sky Sports. “It was farcical at times, and when things are farcical, it is thrilling to watch, but there are traditionalists still in Test match cricket.”

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