The Ashes 2025-26: If you’re a Cricket Australia official right now, you’re not just checking the scores – you’re checking the clouds. And bank balance. And maybe your blood pressure.
As we head into the fifth and final Ashes Test at the SCG, the mood in the boardroom is, to put it mildly, ‘smooth’. The reason? a shocking $15 million black holeThis is a projected loss after the first and fourth Tests of this series were “rushed forward” due to the essentially treacherous pitches, both of which ended within just two days,
In the world of sports business, a two-day Test is not a ‘thrilling win’, it is a commercial disaster. Three days of lost ticket sales, empty beer taps, and silent merchandise stores leave a wound that no victory lap can soothe.
‘Russian roulette’ of wickets
The fourth Test at the MCG was a nightmare for both the batsmen and the accountants. It wasn’t just cricket; It was a nasty game of Russian roulette in which 36 wickets fell in 48 hours.
To prevent a repeat, there is immense pressure on the SCG ground staff to do something that the MCG could not – live longAlthough they have not been ordered to make a ‘flat road’ (a pitch that is so easy to bat on that it becomes boring), they are aiming for a surface away from the emerald-green mines seen recently, They do not want ‘two days of destruction’ but ‘5 days of war’,
Sydney’s unwanted reputation
But even if the pitch is perfect, there is one ghost that haunts the SCG every January – SeasonHistory tells a sobering story, Rain has interrupted six of the last 11 Test matches in Sydney, In the last century, a huge 26 days game This plain has been swept away, a record that makes other Australian sites look like the Sahara.
The late, great Shane Warne saw this coming years ago. In 2022, he practically urged Cricket Australia to stop fighting Mother Nature and change the schedule.
“Maybe Brisbane could be the New Year’s Test and Sydney could be the first Test,” Varney suggested. “The weather is better in Sydney at the start of the season…it always rains in the New Year Test.”
Starting with a knife’s edge
As Sunday approaches, those “dark clouds” that Varney warned about are really starting to form. Senior meteorologist Angus Hines has warned that the first day is on a ‘knife edge’, with storms predicted to engulf the stadium.
This is a matter of disappointment for the fans. For the players, this is a rhythm breaker. But this is a nightmare for Cricket Australia. They need this game to get some of that $15 million back.
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