England’s divisive preparations for next week’s day/night Ashes Test have received support from an unexpected source: former Australia seamer Peter Siddle.
The tourists have passed up the opportunity to send any of their first-choice Test team to face a Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra, spurning a chance to get accustomed to the floodlit cricket and the pink Kookaburra ball.
And while that decision has attracted plenty of criticism, the man who will be fronting up the home attack can see the logic.
Siddle, now 40, will be trying to rekindle his glory years by trying to take English wickets at Manuka Oval but he believes gentler pitches in the capital would not be perfect practice for the pacier tracks awaiting in Queensland.
“The first Test didn’t go to plan for them, but it’s such different conditions, Manuka Oval compared to the Gabba, two totally different surfaces,” he told Fox Sports on the 15th anniversary of his Test hat-trick against England in the Brisbane Test of 2010.
“There’s not going to be a lot they can get out of it, other than maybe seeing a pink ball under lights, that’s probably the only benefit they’re going to get.
“It’s a hard one, I know what it’s like being on tour for a long time. It’s only the first Test just gone, but they just came from New Zealand most of that squad so they’ve played a lot of cricket.”
Another former Australia international, and one time Lancashire head coach Stuart Law, agreed.
He told BBC World Service: “I wouldn’t want to bat in Canberra and then go to Brisbane. You’ve got a ball bouncing at knee-high and then you’ve got a ball bouncing at chest-high. It doesn’t really do you too much good.”