Mitchell Starc has admitted that Australia’s players are upset at the decision to shift the opening Ashes Test from its traditional home of Brisbane’s Gabba – nicknamed “the Gabbatoir” because of its reputation as the graveyard of touring sides, and a ground where England have won just two of their last 20 games dating back to 1946 – to Perth Stadium.
Asked whether his side could expect to enjoy a similar advantage at the game’s new home, Starc said: “We’ll find out in a week, won’t we? They don’t listen to the players, we would have liked to start in Brisbane, too.” England’s Gus Atkinson meanwhile said that though “there are no scars for me” from his country’s previous failures in Brisbane given he is a first-time Ashes tourist, “history would say it’s probably a good thing we’re not starting at the Gabba”.
But Isaac McDonald, chief curator at Perth Stadium, has defended the decision, saying that Perth’s relative proximity to England makes it a sensible first stop, and adding that he is enjoying the extra attention that comes with hosting the first game of a marquee series.
“We’ve actually opened the last four summers here,” McDonald says. “So we’ve been the first Test of the summer for the last four years. You get all the first-game hype regardless who it is – I thought last year with the Indian touring team that it was crazy but this is a whole new level, being in the Ashes. In some ways it’s pretty cool that we are the first because it does have that extra little hype, but being a direct flight from the UK to Perth it kind of makes sense that it is the first one. Just being around town you can tell there’s a lot of travellers here that have come from the UK to watch this game, so it’s going to be really cool to kick it off.”
One complication for McDonald is the fact that the first Test starts less than three weeks after Perth Stadium hosted a concert by the rock band Metallica, held just days after the drop-in wicket had been installed. “The wicket came out of the concerts unscathed, with no scarring, and having the run-in after the concert leading into this game was perfect timing – it gave us enough time to get moisture back through the profile and get us into a really confident spot leading into the first day of preparation.”
Cameron Green bowls during an Australia cricket team training session at Perth Stadium. Photograph: Dave Hunt/EPA
Australia have won four of their five games at Perth Stadium, which replaced the nearby WACA as host of the Western Australia’s Test matches after the 2017 Ashes, with their only defeat coming against India last year, when 17 wickets fell on a chaotic first day before the wicket flattened. “I miss the WACA,” Starc said. “The Fremantle Doctor [the cooling afternoon breeze] comes in. It’s swirly wind here, not one direction. You can have three directions each over.
“We’ve had five different wickets here in a sense – we’ve had a pretty slow, flat wicket against the West Indies, we had the first Test here where it cracked up and played a bit like the WACA used to. Last year we saw lots of wickets on the first day. There’s been a fair bit made about the colour of it, that it’s going to be a green mamba – it’s all good and well to look at the wicket, but until both teams have played on it we’re not really sure what it’s going to do.”
McDonald has moved all his preparations this year forward one day, in an attempt to avoid the scenes witnessed on the first day last year. “The curator, no matter what the outcome of the game, always reflects and on reflection maybe I was a day late on the prep,” he says of that India game. “So we’ve knuckled down and we started a day early to ensure that the firmness is there and the characteristics of our WACA pitch, the pace and bounce, are going to be there on day one.”
The Test will be contested on the same drop-in pitch that was used in the India match and all five previous Tests here, which has spent the winter recuperating just outside the ground. “It just seems to have the best characteristics, so why change something that’s working really well?” McDonald says.
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Despite the wildness of the first day last year’s pitch was rated as “very good” by the International Cricket Council, the highest possible ranking. At the time Cricket Australia’s head of cricket operations said: “We don’t look to prepare wickets that favour the home side or suit our situation in a series. What we seek is a good contest between bat and ball and pitches that are likely to produce a result.”
Perth Stadium curator Isaac McDonald pulls the covers off the pitch. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP
McDonald insists that he had received “absolutely no directives from anyone ever – that just doesn’t happen” and is fully focused on delivering the seam-friendly conditions that Tests both at the WACA and at Perth Stadium are known for. “Low and slow is just not possible – West Test is pace and bounce and that’s what we’re gonna stick to,” he said. “I’ve really knuckled down with ensuring that’s spot on from day one to ensure that even battle.”
But the 28-year-old admits that, as Starc suggested, he will not be sure how the pitch will play until it has been played on, forcing him to endure a tortuous wait for validation – or ignominy. “Friday morning is the slowest,” he says. “I get here normally around 5.30am on matchdays, so that’s a slow, slow five-hour sit-around for me. Once the toss is done and I can’t roll any longer or take any more grass out I park myself up, and the national anthems seem like they go on for minutes and minutes. It’s probably more excitement than dreading what’s coming, but you can be as confident as you like, until you’re an hour into actual play you just don’t know.”
