Cricket Australia rules out further Test pitch intervention

Cricket Australia (CA) will not extend any further control over the preparation of Test pitches in the country and believes that the local curators are capable of preparing the wickets despite several disappointing results during the Ashes series.

Two-day finishes in Perth and at the MCG during the Ashes had brought the nature of pitches under scrutiny, proving quite a disappointment for fans as they were robbed of mouth-watering action, and costing Cricket Australia millions.

"It's inconceivable that we could ever control much more than we do now," CA's head of operations, Peter Roach, was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. "In England, you could put in a central curator to go around or New Zealand, or South Africa, because the wickets and the clays and the climates are so similar.

"In Australia, because they're so different, you could put the best curator in Australia to a different venue and all of a sudden they're an also-ran for a while.  Because they wouldn't know the characteristics and the climate and how those pitches respond to that."

Roach also mentioned that they do not want to alter the nature of wickets around the country and make the pitches uniform.

"The difference of our pitches across from west to east to north to south is so pronounced and it's something that we don't want to change," Roach said. "We think it's a really good competitive advantage that we don't want to make our wickets all too similar like we see in some other countries.

"Giving curators the chance to explore their unique characteristics is really important. But with that comes a reasonable amount of risk.  It does mean that occasionally we go wrong ... But I think our history is pretty good in terms of working with venues to improve them."