I believe drop-ins have been used at the MCG since 1996 or so. Watch highlights of test/ODI matches at the MCG before then and you will see how much more bowler-friendly it was. Kim Hughes 100* in 1981 vs West Indies remains one of the best innings.
Since drop-in pitches, the only test matches at the MCG that provided a good battle between bat and ball were ones such as the 1998 Ashes were rain played a role.
Those ropes straight down the ground are a good 10 metres or so in from the old fence (only 65m from the centre of the pitch). So much for the MCG being a BIIIIIIIIG ground.
1981 v West Indies
" In addition to the pressure situation in which he batted, Hughes also rose above an ordinary MCG pitch. In the early-1980s, the MCG wicket was notorious for inconsistent pace and bounce – not the best conditions for facing a rapid and menacing West Indies fast bowling battery. In the two previous MCG Tests, the wicket had become a minefield on the fourth and fifth days and Australia had suffered embarrassing defeats. In February 1981, Australia had been rolled by India for 83, chasing a mild total of 143. Less than two weeks before the Boxing Day engagement with the West Indies, Pakistan had rolled the Australians for 125 and consigned the home side to an innings defeat. The MCG pitch was canned and, after Australia’s eventual 58 run win against the West Indies, the Melbourne Cricket Club announced that the centre square would be dug up at the end of the 1981/82 season and re-laid over the next three years."
https://www.footyalmanac.com.au/alm...an-kim-hughes-v-west-indies-melbourne-198182/
1981 Australia v Pakistan
Lillee, Thomson, Alderman didn't get a wicket from the 88 overs they bowled.
Australia scored 180 runs in a whole days play.
"Greg Chappell, Australia's captain, complained to the Australian Cricket Board about the condition of the Melbourne pitch, being supported in this by the Pakistan captain, Javed Miandad."
Lol......"On no single day did the crowd number 10,000. The total match attendance was 33,743, a serious decline on previous years."
http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/152256.html
"The most famous Boxing Day, 1981, began with Australian captain Greg Chappell storming the Australian Cricket Board committee room and threatening not to take the field, such was his fury at the state of the wicket. His wrath echoed through a decade in which, as sure as the WACA Ground was fast and bouncy and the SCG a turner, the MCG was a grassless, low-bouncing, much-derided heap. Such a surface was perhaps not the ideal place for Allan Border's Australians to decide they had taken enough "chin music" from the West Indian quicks in 1988-89, on a pitch whose corrugations were tangible on the first morning. After being peppered with bouncers, Patrick Patterson stormed the home dressing room at stumps on day one and declared revenge would be bloody the following day. His spell on day two still induces nightmares."
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/problem-pitches-20041106-gdyxwk.html
