MCG pitch curator shares crucial update about the surface for India versus Pakistan

It will be the mother of all clashes as India and Pakistan lock horns in front of a packed house at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. With fears of rain looming large earlier in the week, the latest update about weather conditions has imbued the fans with hope.

The most obvious question ahead of the big encounter is how would the pitch behave when the two juggernauts collide on Sunday. And who can provide the best possible opinion on the same than the curator himself? MCG’s pitch curator, Michael Salvatore opened up on the conditions and let us in on some prized secrets without divulging, how the surface would eventually turn out to be.

Talking to A Sports, Salvatore said, “T20 wickets are usually really consistent for the whole match. So it should make for a really good game. We have brought it from our wicket nursery which is just outside the ground. It's literally 200 meters outside the ground so we can move and monitor and maintain the wickets all year around. And the wickets were installed three weeks ago.”

He further added, “So we have drop-in wickets here at the MCG. So for the cricket season, we bring the wickets in and I sit on some sand and bed in nicely. And then once cricket finishes, we have got the football stadium. We have the ability to take them out and put them up in our special week anniversary where we can look after and maintain them.”

Talking about the chances of rain, Australia’s bureau of meteorology made it clear that chances of rain have significantly gone down but there are still possibilities of the game being a curtailed one.

In a statement of hope or as you may say, the weather report, they stated, “Cloudy. High (70%) chance of showers, most likely in the late afternoon and evening. The chance of a thunderstorm in the northeast suburbs in the late afternoon and evening. Winds southerly 15 to 25 km/h tending southeasterly 20 to 30 km/h in the evening.”