SYDNEY: The Sydney Cricket Ground may be forced to undergo urgent resurfacing ahead of Australia's January Test against the West Indies after a domestic match was abandoned over the weekend.
Cricket NSW CEO Andrew Jones said on Monday he had been told the SCG Trust administrators intend to resurface the problem playing area after the abandonment of the NSW-Victoria Sheffield Shield game on Sunday.
"The informal advice is that it looks like they are planning to do that as soon as possible," Jones said.
Cricket Australia on Monday awarded all six competition points from the Shield match to Victoria after the match referee called the game off over player safety concerns.
The Sydney outfield had bare patches and patches of loose soil after recent wet weather interfered with the preparation of the playing surface for the cricket season.
The Blues' next Shield match, against Tasmania starting on Saturday, has been switched from the SCG to the suburban Bankstown Oval, with NSW Cricket saying they could not afford to risk forfeiting more competition points.
However, Cricket Australia (CA) said it was confident the SCG surface would be fit to host the Australian team's New Year's Test against the West Indies, starting on January 3.
"The Sydney Test is two months away. We have every confidence they will get the playing surface right for that match," said CA head of cricket operations Sean Cary.
"We will have to make some checks on it between now and then and we are very hopeful they will get it right."
The NSW v Victoria tie was called off on Sunday, the third day of the scheduled four days.
The SCG Trust has insisted the ground was safe and there was no need to abandon the match. But a CA review on Monday supported the abandonment.
The incident comes after a New Zealand tour match at Sydney's Blacktown was abandoned last month over a disintegrating pitch described by Black Caps coach Mike Hesson as "a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing".
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