Former Australian cricket coach Darren Lehmann has reignited his campaign to abolish the coin toss in Test matches, as the financial and sporting fallout from the historic two-day Ashes Test in Melbourne continues to reverberate.
Financial Blow and Historic Short Match
Cricket Australia is facing a multi-million dollar financial hit after the Boxing Day Test against England concluded inside just two days of play. This comes only a month after the first Ashes Test in Perth also finished with three days to spare. This marks the first time in 129 years that the same Test series has featured multiple two-day matches.
The early finish at the Melbourne Cricket Ground has triggered a huge refund operation, with patrons who purchased tickets for the sold-out Day 3 set to receive their money back. The MCG had been on track for a third consecutive day with a crowd exceeding 90,000 spectators.
Lehmann's Long-Held Pitch Solution
Amid intense debate over the condition of the MCG pitch, Lehmann took to social media to advocate for a radical change. "Get rid of the toss, away team chooses. Simple as that," he tweeted.
This is not a new position for Lehmann. He first publicly proposed the idea in December 2015 after Australia's series win over New Zealand. He argued that giving the visiting team the choice to bat or bowl first would incentivise host nations to prepare fairer pitches, rather than surfaces heavily favouring the home side.
He elaborated in his 2016 autobiography, Coach, stating that the biggest threat to Test cricket was the quality of pitches, which were either too bland or too biased. His solution was to remove the toss to ensure the better team, not the one winning the coin flip, would typically triumph over five days.
MCG Curator Admits Critical Error
MCG curator Matt Page has conceded his team made a mistake in preparing a pitch with too much grass for the Boxing Day Test. The team left 10mm of grass, up from 7mm the previous year, hoping the hot forecasted weather would balance the contest later in the match.
"We're trying to balance that contest between bat and ball throughout, over the four or five days," Page explained. "You look back at it and you go, 'well, it's favoured the bowlers too much days one and two'."
Page described being in a "state of shock" as wickets tumbled rapidly and admitted he hoped never to be involved in a similar two-day Test again.
The treacherous pitch drew criticism from bowling legends like Stuart Broad, Glenn McGrath, and Brett Lee, who said it was unfair to batters. Even winning England captain Ben Stokes criticised the surface after securing his team's first Test win in Australia in 15 years.
Calls for Pitches to Adapt to Modern Game
Australia Cricketers’ Association CEO Paul Marsh suggested that curators need to adjust their approach to pitch preparation to suit modern, aggressive batting, rather than expecting players to change their style. He pointed to the Adelaide pitch as a preferable model compared to those in Perth and Melbourne.
The dramatic events of the Melbourne Test have forcefully pushed the perennial debate about pitch preparation and competitive balance back to the centre of cricket discussion, with Lehmann's toss proposal now gaining fresh attention.
