Channelling the spirit of the WACA, Perth Stadium is now Australia's best Test venue

Well if you lived in the Yanchep, Roleystone or Forestdale areas you'd have been very concerned.

"At least one ground in South Africa (might be Cape Town, but not sure, it has to be a coastal one) is known to move around everywhere when the tide comes in" Yep that's Durban. But Cape Town is a fascinating one; the moisture build up around Table Mountain definitely has an impact on through the air movement at Newlands, which is on the "inland" side of the mountain (Newlands is incredibly lush with tall trees compared to other areas around the city). Yes, sweating pitches are also an influence. Swing is a fascinating element of the game. And the variables influencing swing equally so. And that's just one piece of the cricket puzzle.

Yeah, a ground like the WACA has some definite corridors for breeze to blow through. A ground like Perth Stadium has gaps where the wind can get through, but it wouldn't be an unencumbered flow, so it's going to get swirly and less even definitely. Swing is an amazing thing. It's pretty amazing that in this day and age there is still so much mystery around it. It's amazing how different things seem to affect it in different places. Like there are some grounds in England where the ball never seems to swing with blue skies, but when the clouds roll in it starts swinging. But other grounds it doesn't happen like that. At least one ground in South Africa (might be Cape Town, but not sure, it has to be a coastal one) is known to move around everywhere when the tide comes in, then when the tide goes back out the ball stops moving. I think reverse swing is a bit more consistent. But only if you have an abrasive enough surface to really hack the ball up. I do think that if you can have a lot of moisture under the surface of the pitch then it can really aid swing when it gets hot, because the moisture just starts coming up. I remember playing a game on a concrete pitch on a hot day after several days of rain and you could feel a massive humidity difference between standing on the grass and on the concrete pitch, because the heat and sun was bringing the moisture up. If a pitch is hard and dry on top by has some moisture underneath, then on a hot day I think that can evaporate out and the area right above the pitch is more humid and that helps the swing. But it's amazing how many different factors can influence things and how different it is in different places.

Interesting. Given the northern side of the ground was about 80% full. Didn’t you notice that when you were at the ground Max?

The breeze absolutely passes through Chris. However the seabreeze (the Doctor for those outside of WA!) wasn’t really on show in Perth during the weekend because of the weather conditions. Mostly an easterly, then the wind tends to drop off after sunset. The common, or traditional, view is that moisture in the air helps swing (though experiments a few years ago seemed to dismiss that), but it was so hot over the Test that there was no evening moisture. That said, swing bowling at the WACA has traditionally been of the into the wind type, rather than the still conditions type typical in the UK. The Stadium doesn’t offer the same consistency of direction of breeze as it bends around a bit, so that for me would be the biggest difference.

CA could certainly do something about that. Halve the price of the tickets and I reckon they'd get a lot more people along to those matches! Might find you get twice as many, meaning ticket revenue stays the same, and the venue would love it because they'd make a lot more money as food and alcohol sales are where they make a lot of their money, so having a lot more people there helps them out!

Paul2. Actually 81k for last years Test which wasn’t D/N. What’s the basis to support your opinion?

@Jeff Perth needs a D/N test because the crowds would be even lower otherwise.

Concerns about bushfires are now keeping crowds away? That's a new one.

That’s true Chris, I’m just talking about the impact of crowd and ground size on atmosphere. Lords, Oval and Edgbaston are 25-30,000. Actually a real cap on potential crowds- for the Ashes they were all sold out days 1-4 and might have taken double if they had the room. Most tickets were $150+ as a result.

True Micko, I meant it would be nice to have full looking grounds every day, not so much crowd size, though they are still getting double our crowds for a lot of days. Bigger population to draw on of course.

Definitely, in fact, a lot of the English cricket grounds where test cricket is played have less than 20k capacity. So filling them up is definitely a lot easier. Even the biggest cricket grounds in England come nowhere near the capacity any of the major grounds in Australia (ie Gabba, SCG, MCG, Adelaide Oval, Perth Stadium). Every one of then has significantly more capacity than the biggest of the English cricket grounds. And then we are drawing the crowds from a smaller population. So really, the English crowds fit the description in Dave’s previous sentence, talking about how packing out a ground that can only fit 10,000 looks better than having 20,000 rock up to a ground that fits 60,000. It certainly looks better on TV, but you still only have half the people at the ground.

I would like to have, but eviction would duly have followed. I'm for making a stand but I've been evicted for little stuff like this in the past, and it doesn't make a lick of difference to the stadiums, unless the masses walk. Ps I find the novelty of a pool at the cricket has also run it's course, it's a test match not the T20, it's basically one big s%#t billboard that is full of knobs not even paying attention to the game.

Had a huge array of brilliant empty plastic seats They definitely employ the best crowd counter, he triple counted everyone

Yes, but no character though. No grass banks which was popular at the WACA. They won't spend money ripping up seating for temporary grass banks for the test and BBL, but they're keen to bring this gimmick over from the Gabba where they have a whole pool area. Why not both?

And this differs from Optus how, it was designed to be a multi purpose modern stadium.

Well, actually, nearly everyone in fact was singing it's praises last year. A simple google search will confirm that. No, not standard bearer of moral high ground, just common courtesy in communication. I would suggest most Australian's have limited tolerance for sledging - which is quite different to banter - again, you will find most posters on here focus on the game and take a balanced view, though some don't. Most want to see what's best for the game, not the home team, though some don't. I've been quite strong in my view on this forum that NZ has been disadvantaged by the scheduling and in terms of match prep and that NZ literally got the wrong side of the flip of the coin - though it goes that way sometimes in cricket - and that with a few sliding doors moments, the result would not have been anywhere near as favourable to Australia as the scoreboard suggests.

I thought banter / sledging was applauded by Aussies ? You obviously read every comment religiously and if no one agrees with you or it’s 3rd hand it’s not true? Sub par is it? You are the standard bearer of moral high ground like the Ugly Aussies were? Now my point, if it’s such a great pitch, why wasn’t everyone singing its praises last year? Pretty much same, just different ball, was rated average last year, didn’t want to up upset the Indians post test?

As you have never been there Azza and I have on many many occasions, I indeed will keep telling myself that and you can indeed keep posting 3rd hand opinions. No reference in your reply to “dip#$%$”, “flog”, “bro”, “dimwit” this time? Your limited comments history is truly enlightening, but sub-par for this forum, sadly for you.

Yes, but the point is they designed it to be a cricket ground still...just with a capacity to handle AFL footy crowds.