The opening Test of the Ashes 2025-26 series concluded in a rapid two days at Perth Stadium, with Australia securing an eight-wicket victory over England. Despite the game’s brevity and the challenging conditions, the ICC match referee controversially awarded the Perth pitch a ‘very good’ rating.

However, Australian opener Usman Khawaja strongly disagreed with this assessment, publicly and emphatically criticizing the Day 1 surface for its unpredictable and dangerous nature. Khawaja’s comments, made at an event for his foundation, highlight the disparity between player experience and official pitch ratings.

Usman Khawaja rejects ‘very good’ rating by ICC with strong criticism

Khawaja, speaking at an event for his Usman Khawaja Foundation, publicly condemned the Perth Stadium pitch, contrasting his view sharply with the ICC’s highest possible rating. The Australian opener was uncompromising in his assessment of the Day 1 surface, emphasizing the undue difficulty and danger it posed to the batters: “Nineteen wickets on the first day and about 20 people got hit, that’s a great wicket – that seems real fair.” He criticised the unpredictable “up and down” bounce as the hardest factor to deal with, explaining the difficulty for batsmen: “You can’t really predict up and down. Up and down is the hardest – sideways is a little bit easier but up and down, your hands can’t catch up.”

Khawaja stressed that the conditions were so severe they troubled the world’s elite players, noting the difficulty in connecting with the ball: “He’s missing the middle of his bat by a long way – he does not miss the middle of his bat. He’s getting hit in the elbow, he’s getting hit.” He insisted this issue was recurring, having observed “The same thing happened last year in the Indian Test.” The bater did concede that the pitch improved later, stating: “So day one wicket at (Perth) is a piece of s*, I’m happy to say that. It has been last year, it was this year. They do get better. Day two, day three, and then day four, they start to crack up.”

England’s Bazball blasted by Travis Head in Perth as Australia clinches shortest Ashes Test result in 104 years

The Ashes series commenced with a stunningly brief First Test in Perth, concluding in a dominant eight-wicket victory for Australia inside just two days, marking the shortest completed Ashes match since 1921. England, opting to bat first, were quickly run through by the Australian fast bowlers, who repeatedly exploited a pitch that provided excessive seam movement and unpredictable bounce, leading to an astonishing 19 wickets falling on the chaotic opening day. Although England managed a 40-run first-innings lead, their middle-order suffered a catastrophic collapse in the second innings, setting Australia a challenging but chaseable target of 205 runs on the second afternoon.

The chase was transformed from daunting to decisive by 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, blasting 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’ tactics. This whirlwind performance, which saw Australia motor past the target at an unheard-of run rate, secured a 1-0 lead in the five-Test series for the hosts, leaving the English camp, in the words of their captain, “shell-shocked” and struggling to comprehend their rapid capitulation ahead of the day-night fixture at the Gabba.