As the Tests against New Zealand are officially underway, it has become evident how unlucky the ground selections for the series are.
When the Cricket Australia schedule was being organised, it was always going to be Melbourne and Sydney for the second and third matches due to the annual traditions that are the Boxing Day Test at the M.C.G as well as the New Years and Glenn McGrath Foundation Test at the SCG.
However, either Manuka Oval, Blundstone Arena or the Perth Stadium were the front-runners to be chosen to host the first Test of the series against our Tasman neighbours. As expected, it was decided that the Perth Stadium should host the first Test of the series and its second Test ever.
Due to the fact that the Perth Stadium has a highly advanced lighting system and even holds the record for the most LED lights for any stadium in the entire world, with this game Western Australia will host its first-ever day-night Test match.
At the time when these locations were announced, no controversies were caused as all the selected grounds had perfectly logical and sensible reasoning behind why they were selected. Unfortunately, due to abnormal weather and a national emergency, I believe these grounds are no longer suitable for Test cricket this summer.
Let’s begin with Perth. Perth has had many hot days already within these last couple of months, but the peak of the heat occurs during the Test match. In Burswood (which is the suburb where the Perth Stadium is located), three days of play are expected to reach maximum temperatures of over 40°C, with the other two days still not being ideal for a long day’s play, reaching predicted top temperatures of 39°C and 33°.
To put it in perspective, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, this is Perth’s hottest December week in 26 years. These temperatures aren’t good for both the players and the spectators.
(AP Photo/Jon Super)
For the crowd, the majority of the ground has very little or no protection from the sun, in particular spectators in the Langer Stand on the River End. The only area which is well shaded 90 per cent of the time or more is the members area.
Whether this feature was designed on purpose or not to give the members the best seats in the house still remains unknown and unclear. This will effectively cause low attendance rates and bring a noticeable loss of money into the game both in Western Australia and all of the country in general.
For the players, this heatwave is a massive concern. It is commonly known that warm weather can affect someone’s physical well-being via heavy sweating, dehydration, headaches, nausea, dizziness, cramps and overall exhaustion. This will lead to the introduction of many more drinks breaks as well as much shorter bowling spells.
These ideas were also coincidentally used on the 14th of December in 2018 in Perth, during the first day of the second Test against India. The temperature of that day got up to 39°C at its peak, causing the Indian fast bowlers to have as little as three over spells.
Due to this, the spin bowling options of Hanuma Vihari and Murali Vijay became a go-to move. I believe similar occurrences will happen a lot in this test, with Nathan Lyon and Marnus Labuschagne for Australia and Mitchell Santner and Todd Astle for New Zealand.
As a whole, this Test will be an interesting one as it seems that it may turn out to be a battle of the spin bowlers but also, a battle to keep the crowd attendance above 13,000 every day as well.
anon
Roar Pro
Labourers spend all time working in that heat. Harden up.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Very true about the humidity. Having played a couple of games in tropics Africa, where they try to start half day matches at 7 am to avoid the worst, even if the maximum temp is 33.
Paul
Roar Guru
hi Alex, I think your intentions were right, but I'm not sure you nailed the points you were trying to make. "It is commonly known that warm weather can affect someone’s physical well-being via heavy sweating, dehydration, headaches, nausea, dizziness, cramps and overall exhaustion." You're right about this to a degree but the real issue is the body's ability to cool down and that can be affected significantly by humidity for example. High humidity interfere's the body's ability to cool itself excess moisture off the skin because the air's saturated. Just as the Test was yesterday, I've played in 40 plus degrees but very low humidity and was no where near as heat stressed as I was playing in 32 degrees and 75% humidity. Perth was actually a very good choice for this Test, given Australian summers are hot, regardless where one is. As others who were at the ground have suggested, the heat was manageable for spectators and clearly the players had rehydration well in hand. It would have been a completely different matter if this game was played at the Gabba, for example - 30 degrees and 70% humidity. Then the points you made about the ground, might have had some foundation.
Republican
Guest
There has been much hyperbole re the temps I reckon. This is Summer in Australia and to be expected I would have thought. 40C plus is not uncommon for Perth albeit early this year I suppose. The whole nation is experiencing unprecedented dryness and as such the heat is going to be more protracted when it sets in, except in Melbourne & Hobart where the latitude means a 40C day can come and go within 24 hours, dropping to 18C the following day. Canberra has already experienced 3 x 40C days, two of these in early November, another last week and another two forecast for next week. Canberra is probably hotter than Perth these days and while it is considered a cold city by Australian standards this is exaggerated. As with all inland Australia, Summer is the dominant season and more so due to Climate Change, while Summer in the nations capital endures from Oct through to April, so 7 months now. I reckon Cricket and Tennis should be played in our Winter months rather than being wed to a northern hemisphere version of seasons which are irrelevant here. This would be internationally impracticable presently however, with CC biting harder and harder, this might be our new reality.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Different markets.
Mick Jeffrey
Roar Rookie
They probably won't come Saturday, the twilight session clashes with a Wildcats home game (5:30PM WST tip off, they'll get over 10K and perhaps close to a sell out given it's their last home game for a while), and given the choice of sitting in the heat/warm conditions or sitting in the air conditioned comfort with the city there (a small thing given how close the stadium is to the city) plus they would need to pay full price if they wanted to do both (hoops would finish about 7PM unless it was an OT game) which for about half a day's play may not be worth it.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
19k attendance today which is a full house at the WACA. That's a very good result for two reasons i) it's a weekday and ii) the perception of having to sweat it out in the sun on a hot day. The second point is the the real issue IMO. For a cricketing public used to bad experiences of having had to sit in the sun for so many years, it will take time for people to realise that this is no longer required; hopefully over time this perception will change. Misinformation will not help. Yes, the cross ventilation through the stadium is excellent. We had breeze on us all day until the evening session. Note: similar to the members, the public does not have to sit in a designated seat; they are free to move around which ever level they have tickets for. With at least 30k-35k of public seating in full shade all day, there really is no reason why anyone has to sit in the sun at any point during the game. It really was state of the art design done well to get so much shade in summer and so much sun in winter.
Cigar Field Sobers
Roar Rookie
Bang on, Jeff. Have you even been to the stadium, Alex ? Plenty of shade apart from the lower areas of the south-east side. And even when hot, there is always something of a breeze off the river. I’m done giving my money to the WACA with their price gouging at every turn, but I’ll be getting along for some pink ball action in the weekend.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
I certainly agree with your sentiment re cricket grounds over stadiums Micko. But there has been no unpleasantness about sitting in the stadium today, even given the temperatures. This has been far far better than sitting in the EACA’s Lille Marsh stand on a hot day, even though the WACA is an open ground.
Micko
Roar Rookie
That's the problem when you play in concrete bowl stadiums in a Perth Summer. Australia needs cricket grounds: complete shade in most areas and grass areas. Considering the prices people pay to attend a day of test cricket, the experience for a lot of people is poor. If you're lucky enough to get a nice corporate box/seat in air con somewhere then most people would be bloody envious!
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Mark, for the weekday days of play, the WACA is offering $20 twilight session tickets. So I think we may see a few more come in the evening. I would say the members is about as full as it has been for most BBL games last season. So I think maybe 10k to 13k are in the members alone?
Mark
Guest
Pretty misguided article. The claim that the test will be a battle of the spinners was strange even before the match but looks even weaker 3 hours in. There have been plenty of very hot Perth tests before, such as 96/97 when the Windies bowled one over spells, yet they managed to bowl the Aussies out twice. BTW the WACA was a terrible place to watch cricket in 40 degree heat. I haven’t been to Optus but from the TV it looks like the fans have found the shaded areas. Not sure what the crowd will be but I think they will get more than 13,000 a day (not sure where the author plucked that figure from). BTW ‘crowd attendance’ is a tautology - both words mean the same thing.
Jeff
Roar Rookie
Sorry Alex. Wrong on too many fronts in this article not sure if you are going to the ground this Test but at present it’s 39C but the beeeze is blowing right through the ground. In no way is it uncomfortable in the shade. At 1pm, 90-95% of all seating was in the shade. It’s now 3.40pm and I would say 15% max of the public area ( the Langer Stand) is in the sun. In fact, about 70% of the public area will do no sun at any point during the game. Members about 95% Not sure where you got your facts, but to say that for the majority of the crowd the ground has little or no sun is just plain wrong. The only thing that will cause WA cricket to lose money, as you noted, is misinformation like this that creates false perception.