TOPIC:

Cricket Australia have more important things to worry about than organising a cricket schedule around McGowan’s quarantine rules for international and interstate visitors and the sports minister has no idea either, made a clown of himself last week

Tiger of old wrote:

The FIRST test should have been fixtured in Perth from the start, solves everything, this ridiculous “tradition” of Brisbane getting the first test for over thirty years now is a joke, it’ll be raining probably, AGAIN.

TOO I have had to laugh at this so called "tradition" of the Gabba "fortress" holding the 1st Test of every Summer......it was the 4th Test last Summer and we were comprehensively pantsed by India's 2nd XI there!
What happened to the traditional Lilac Hill Festival match that used to kick off the tourist's Summer in Australia each year???
Tradition apparently only happens on the East Coast to the numpty media and almost equally inept administrators!
 

BC wrote:

Here you go 58. From Geoff Lawson writing in WA Today.

Mark McGowan is a former New South Welshman put in charge of a distant state, living his own version of a dream in Western Australia. His anti-hero, populist politics have grated with most in the east and won an election in the west, but his iron-curtain attitude may well be about to alienate both of these groups if he prevents the Test match being played in Perth through disproportionate quarantine provisions. The drop-in pitches at Optus Stadium are made from the same Harvey River clay that is laid at the WACA ground a few hundred metres across the Swan River. It is hard and fast; there is nothing like it in world cricket. As a home pitch it provides Australia with a qualitative advantage, just as the high bounce and quick spin at the Gabba (Shane Warne’s most successful pitch in Australia), concocted from Jimboomba couch on smectite clay, has provided.

Fair enough, as usual Lawson vents his anti WA spleen.  Perhaps we could hear from Mr Warne too…..ffs!  Be interested to hear from those with a more reasoned and cogent approach.
One thing is for sure, anyone and everyone who enjoys a bit of cricket will be totally peed off at Mr McG and he’ll have a lot of work to do before next election.  Long memories!!!  This can’t go on.

 

It’s up to Cricket Australia to organise the Summer, not politicians.

No sport that crosses state borders can be played without cooperation between government and the sporting organisation, 5 premiers can make a test match work, 1 can’t.
The numbers don’t support your theory

It’s not a theory it’s an opinion. The MCG gets the “traditional” Boxing Day test, the SCG gets the “traditional” New Years test, and as possibly the best stadium in the country with the most reliable weather Perth should get the first test. Brisbane has been spoilt for a long time now with the first test and the weather there in early December is reliably unreliable. Cricket Australia should have read the tea leaves early on and had England land in Perth and quarantine here and start the Test series here, especially considering we didn’t get a test here last season. Seems to me that would have been an easy way to negotiate WAs strict border and quarantine rules.

Your theory or opinion that Perth should get the first test isn’t supported by mark mcgowan who doesn’t let international visitors do 3 days hard quarantine and then go and do cricket training which Queensland allowed.
They did the deal and got the 1st test so any other theories or opinions that wa is hard done by ?

No, no more theories or opinions from me, If it was not possible at all for Perth to get the first test than there’s nothing more Cricket Australia could have done. I thought there might have been a way but if there wasn’t then my opinion isn’t valid.

Why would CA completely re-arrange the Ashes schedule to accommodate a state which has ridiculous quarantine and border rules, and is 6 months behind the rest of the country in opening up? They'll just say "sorry...you made it all too hard so we'll take our Test match elsewhere.." and who can blame them?

Asking CA to rearrange the fixture this late in the piece is pie in the sky stuff from the WA Gov.
But it would have made sense to have fixtured the 1st Test in Perth in the first place knowing what our Emperor is like.
That way they could have got it out the way first up then moved to Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne & finally Sydney but common sense is not very common in sports administration.
Let us also not forget Perth Stadium is the 2nd largest Test venue in the country and also the Perth Test is the highest rating Test on TV each year, something the supposed cash strapped CA would do well to remember.
It is also a venue where we Australia are undefeated in Test cricket, in fact England havent won a Test in Perth since 1986/87 (so much for that supposed Gabba fortress)!
And dont give me this bullshit it is the "tradition" to start in Brisbane!
Brisbane was the 4th Test in last Summer and a couple of Summers ago it played host to lowly Sri Lanka in late January, early February as it was overlooked for the NZ series that opened the Summer!
The brain dead media might have short memories but not everyone does!