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Opinion
Perth Stadium is already the most exciting Test venue in Australia thanks to its lively pitch which offers a fantastic balance between bat and ball.
Just two years into its young life, Perth’s new cricket headquarters has surpassed the Gabba and Adelaide Oval as the best Test surface in the country.
At Perth Stadium, fast bowlers get reward for effort throughout the Test, batsmen can flourish in the first innings, and spinners increasingly come into play across the match.
That is a great mix. Far too often in recent years, Australia’s Test pitches have been lopsided, heavily favouring batsmen.
While 140kmh-plus bowlers have remained threatening on most of those pitches, they have largely neutered spinners, as well as seam and swing bowlers who don’t possess startling pace.
By comparison, the deck at Perth Stadium appeals to all styles of bowlers. The focus has been on how it assists genuinely sharp quicks, due to the generous pace and bounce it offers.
Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins have been frightening at times on this surface, while India’s four-pronged pace attack had the home batsmen ducking and weaving last summer.
Pat Cummins of Australia. (AAP Image/Scott Barbour)
In this way it brings back memories of the WACA pitch in its glory era. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, pacemen from around the world dreamed about getting to fling a new ball into the trampoline-like surface at Perth.
Watching the likes of Curtly Ambrose, Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee, Wasim Akram and Allan Donald cutting loose at the WACA count among my favourite memories as a kid growing up in Perth.
Then in recent years the WACA became less of a killing field and more of a safe haven. In the last Test at that ground, a very weak England batting line-up piled up 402 batting first before Australia monstered 9-662d.
Two years previous to that the WACA served up one of the most one-sided Test pitches I’ve ever seen – Australia made 559 and New Zealand countered with 624.
Australian express quick Mitchell Johnson retired after that Test, and it was dead pitches like that which likely convinced him to quit, according to his long-time teammate Ryan Harris.
“I am sure that was part of his decision making,” Harris told media at the time, referring to the impact of dead Australian Test pitches. “I think the wickets are ridiculously flat, especially when you are playing a home series.”
Now in Perth Stadium we finally again have a pitch that excites fast bowlers. It was riveting to watch Mitchell Starc intimidate NZ’s quality top six in this Test.
Never before have I seen New Zealand legends Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor look as rattled as they were against Starc in the night session on day two.
I’m already salivating at the prospect of seeing dynamic Indian quicks Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami and Ishant Sharma peppering Steve Smith and David Warner with short stuff next summer.
Yet, as I argued above, this Perth surface is not just the domain of genuine quicks. Once this series is over, I’ll be shocked if gentle-paced New Zealand swing bowlers Tim Southee and Colin de Grandhomme don’t rank Perth Stadium their favourite pitch in Australia.
They face a stiff task to remain anywhere near as threatening on the MCG and SCG decks as they did in Perth.
They, too, benefited from the pace in the pitch, as well as the variable bounce as the match progressed.
This is one attractive attribute of the Perth surface – the way it changes significantly over the course of a Test.
Too many Australian pitches in recent years have altered only slightly in behaviour as a Test wears on. While significant variations in bounce should not occur on the first two days of a Test, from then on this unpredictability makes play more interesting, as long as conditions remain safe.
New Zealand quick Tim Southee. (AFP, Saeed Khan)
This helps to keep accurate medium pacers in the contest – the same types of bowlers who get slaughtered on pitches like the MCG and SCG where batsmen can hit through the ball with complete confidence. Then there’s the spinners.
Nathan Lyon must be a massive fan of the Perth Stadium pitch already. In two Tests there he has had a huge impact, taking 14 wickets at 15. In his other seven home Tests these past two summers Lyon has taken just 24 wickets at 40, underlining how much better he has fared in Perth.
Lyon was getting nice turn and bounce from his first over against NZ. So the Perth Stadium pitch supports good spinners, is brilliant for the speedsters, keeps the less dynamic pacemen in the game, and yet still gives batsmen a chance, particularly in the first half of Tests.
That sounds like a near-perfect Test surface to me. As much as I loved the WACA, Perth Stadium is proving to be a boon for Australian Test cricket.