What made England captain Ben Stokes unhappy?Image Credit source: PTI
Ending a long wait of 5468 days, England finally succeeded in winning a Test match on Australian soil. England, captained by Ben Stokes, who had already lost the ongoing Ashes series in Australia, finally saved some respect by registering a win in the fourth Test match. But even after this memorable victory at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), English captain Stokes looked unhappy for a special reason and this reason was the MCG pitch.
Like every year, this time too at MCG 'Boxing Day Test' Played. But this match, which started on Friday 26th December, ended on 27th December i.e. within just 2 days. Overall, only 142 overs could be played in this match and 36 wickets fell. No team could score 200 runs and no batsman could score a half-century during this period. That means the match ended quickly, which proved to be disappointing for the fans because the 'Boxing Day' test match always attracts the highest number of spectators.
Obviously, considering the status of the series and the history of the last one and a half decade, this was a good result for England, but its captain Ben Stokes did not seem much impressed by it. While talking to the media after the match, Stokes called such matches bad. He said, "To be honest, you don't want this at all. You wouldn't want the Boxing Day Test match to end in two days. It's not ideal but once the match starts, whatever the situation is, you have to play."
“If that was somewhere else in the world, you know, there'd be hell on”
The captains share their opinions on the spicy MCG pitch 👀 #Ashes pic.twitter.com/XwhX3mexIB
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 27, 2025
Stokes did not stop there and in his gestures he raised questions on MCG by citing the chaos on the pitches in South Asia including India. Stokes said, "I am sure that if this had happened anywhere else in the world, there would have been an uproar. This is not good for a match which should last for 5 days. But we played such a game that the job was done."
The Melbourne Test match ended in just 852 balls. This is the fourth shortest test match in the history of Ashes. The surprising and troublesome thing for Australia is that out of these 4 matches, two have been played in the current Ashes only. The first Test of this series was played in Perth and it ended in just 847 balls, in which Australia defeated England within two days. There was a lot of chaos in that match also. Although the ICC match referee had described the pitch of Perth Stadium as good, now the attention will be on how Melbourne gets its rating.
