{"id":657701,"date":"2025-12-27T11:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657701\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T11:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:17:13","slug":"england-players-cost-australia-5m-as-ben-stokes-makes-feelings-clear-cricket-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/657701\/","title":{"rendered":"England players cost Australia \u00a35m as Ben Stokes makes feelings clear | Cricket | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

England’s<\/a> quick victory in the Boxing Day Test is predicted to cost Australian cricket a staggering \u00a35million. The match, which ended three days early due to an overly bowler-friendly pitch at the packed MCG, will result in significant revenue loss.<\/p>\n

A full house of over 90,000 spectators was expected for day three, including up to 20,000 travelling English fans. The absence of play on Sunday will trigger a wave of refunds and lost sales from merchandise, food and drinks.<\/p>\n

This mirrors the situation in Perth where Australia’s two-day win led to losses estimated at \u00a31.5million.<\/a> Matthew Page, the ground curator, finds himself in the eye of the storm after preparing a pitch with a generous 10mm of live grass that made batting treacherous.<\/p>\n

Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg had hoped to avoid such a situation, telling SEN Radio: “A simple phrase I’d use is \u2013 short Tests are bad for business.” He added: “I can’t be much more blunt than that. 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.”<\/p>\n

While England captain Ben Stokes<\/a> may have been thrilled to secure a much-needed win and dodge a series whitewash, he didn’t mince words about his thoughts on the quality of the pitch. When asked about his feedback to the match referee, he candidly stated: “It won’t be the best. Being brutally honest, that’s not what you want for a Boxing Day Test match. You don’t want a game finishing in less than two days.<\/p>\n

“I’m pretty sure if that was somewhere else in the world there’d be hell on.” Australia’s captain Steve Smith said: “The finances aren’t great and I think it was a sell-out tomorrow.<\/p>\n

“We saw 36 wickets in two days and that indicates it was a pretty tricky wicket. It probably offered a little bit too much.<\/p>\n

“A lot of the Tests have been played in fast forward and this one was over in two day, not ideal. It would be good if it was a little bit longer and we were able to entertain the fans some more but it wasn’t to be.”<\/p>\n

Former England captain Nasser Hussain criticised the pitch, claiming it turned the match into a mockery. He commented on Sky Sports: “I don’t think it’s acceptable not having spin at all and having so much movement in the surface.<\/p>\n

“It was farcical at times and when things are farcical it is thrilling to watch, but there are traditionalists still in Test match cricket.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England’s quick victory in the Boxing Day Test is predicted to cost Australian cricket a staggering \u00a35million. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[43331,198990,748,184109,17896,393,7618,46599,4884,201091,116343,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-657701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-ben-stokes","9":"tag-boxing-day-test","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-cricket-section","12":"tag-cricket-australia","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-england-cricket-team","15":"tag-financial-loss","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-pitch-controversy","18":"tag-the-ashes","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115791255777641954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}