However, Australian opener Usman Khawaja strongly disagreed with this assessment and publicly and emphatically criticized the Day 1 surface for its unpredictable and dangerous nature. Khawaja’s comments, made at an event for his foundation, highlight the difference between player experience and official on-field ratings.
Usman Khawaja dismisses ICC’s ‘very good’ assessment with strong criticism
Khawaja, speaking at an event for his Usman Khawaja Foundation, publicly condemned the Perth Stadium pitch, contrasting his views with the ICC’s highest possible rating. The Australian opener was uncompromising in his assessment of the Day 1 surface, highlighting the unnecessary difficulty and danger this posed to the batters: “Nineteen wickets on the first day and about 20 people got hit, that’s a great wicket – that seems very fair.” He criticized the unpredictable ‘up and down’ bouncing as the most difficult factor to deal with, explaining the difficulty for batsmen: “Up and down you can’t really predict. Up and down is the hardest. Sideways is a little easier, but up and down your hands can’t catch up.”
Khawaja emphasized that the conditions were so severe that the world’s elite players were affected, noting the difficulty of making contact with the ball: “He misses the center of his bat by a long way – he doesn’t miss the center of his bat. He gets hit in the elbow, he gets hit.” He insisted that this problem was happening again, after noting: “The same thing happened in the Indian Test last year. The bater did admit that the pitch improved later and stated: “So day one wicket in (Perth) is a bit of s*, I’m happy to say. It was last year, it was this year. They’re getting better. Day two, day three and then day four they start laughing.”
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England’s Bazball is shot by Travis Head in Perth as Australia achieves shortest Ashes Test result in 104 years
The Ashes series started with a stunningly short first Test in Perth and ended in a dominant eight-wicket win for Australia within just two days, marking the shortest completed Ashes match since 1921. England, who opted to bat first, were quickly routed by Australia’s fast bowlers, who repeatedly exploited a pitch that allowed for excessive seam movement and unpredictable bouncing, leading to an astonishing 19 wickets falling on the chaotic opening day. Although England managed a 40-run lead in the first innings, their middle order suffered a catastrophic collapse in the second innings, leaving Australia a challenging but chaseable target of 205 runs on the second afternoon.
The chase turned from daunting to decisive with the promotion of Travis Headwho stepped up to open in the absence of the injured Khawaja. Head played a brutal, career-defining counter-attacking innings, Shooting 123 runs off just 83 ballsreaching his century off 69 deliveries, the second fastest in Ashes history, to completely flatten the English attack and make a mockery of the aggressive ‘Bazball’ tactic. This scintillating performance, which saw Australia drive past the target at an unprecedented pace, gave the hosts a 1-0 lead in the five-Test series, leaving the England camp, in the words of their captain, ‘shell-shocked’ and struggling to understand their quick capitulation ahead of the day-night match at the Gabba.
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