TThe first stop for the self-styled “Yobbo Crew” once they arrived at the cricket mecca was Shane Warne’s statue. The group – just one of hundreds who dressed for the big day at the MCG – wore thongs, mustard yellow bucket hats with their names on them, and jeans with less leg coverage than a 7-2 field.
As the clock ticked past nine, they seemed happy that they were at the great festival of Australian cricket, but looked less than comfortable with the temperature. After Melbourne’s coldest Christmas in two decades, Boxing Day had brought wind, rain showers and a top temperature in the mid-teens. And so, before taking a photo beneath the bronzed leg spinner, the Yobbo Crew took off their hoodies to reveal matching yellow singlets, revealing a galvanized grimace.
Another fan, chatting with his companion as he walked down from Jolimont Station, put it succinctly: “It’s fucking freezing,” while his friend noted how different it was compared to 2024.
It wasn’t just about the weather. Last year, the Australia-India cricket match left a nation transfixed as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy remained alive till the final Test. The MCG match, when it was almost 40 degrees Celsius when Sam Konstas turned up the heat on Jasprit Bumrah, was the highlight of the summer.
At stumps on Boxing Day last year, the idea that Australia would have won the Ashes within 12 months but Konstas would already be out of the team was unthinkable. But few things can be taken for granted, as police patrolling the grounds with assault rifles reminded everyone.
After five overs the sun finally broke out as England looked to find a counterpart to Australia’s generally competent cricket, also known as ‘Ronball’. There was an early test for Snicko, which led to more snickering from fans around the ground and then a surprise. Travis Head’s wicket drew a hearty cheer from the Barmy army, and three more breakthroughs left England fans wondering if this would be their first Test win on Australian soil in almost 15 years.
The morning’s festivities, which saw a packed stadium experience an exciting match on a green-hued field, were a sight to behold. Although, before playing off the field, Cricket Australia (CA) CEO Todd Greenberg suggested this should not be taken for granted.
The match has become one of cricket’s great traditions since its inception in the 1980s, but CA’s new boss – who first oversaw the national pastime on Boxing Day – said a pink-ball Test match the day after Christmas was “out of the cards”.
“We’ve talked a lot about the power of pink-ball cricket. It was great in Brisbane this year, it was really good in Adelaide,” he said. “We will get a chance here in Melbourne in March 2027.”
Greenberg talked about the one-off 150th anniversary match between these sides. Despite the nod to the past, it is now a pilot for the evening time slot beloved by broadcasters.
Melbourne Cricket Club CEO Stuart Fox made the counterargument. “Personally, I like the tradition,” he said. “I like the tradition of a day game here, and I think the day-night Tests have been great in Adelaide and Brisbane.”
Fox had earlier this week expressed disappointment that the outcome of the Ashes series had already been settled before the MCG clash, but was still hoping for a single-day ground record from the Test visitors, beating 2013’s 91,112. “It will be a record today,” he said Friday morning. His confidence was justified when the figure of 93,442 was announced just before 3pm. Not only is it a Test match record, it also surpasses the 93,013 who attended the World Cup final in 2015, making the MCG’s largest ever cricket crowd.
While the AFL grand finals attract more than 100,000 spectators, cricket attendance at the MCG is limited due to the loss of seats on both sides. “I tried to see if Todd could remove and shrink some of the view screens, because then we could get a few more seats in the stadium,” Fox said lightly. “The players, I don’t think they fully agree with my thoughts.”
The drive for growth is the reason for a rebuild of the Shane Warne Stand, which was built in the 1990s. A business case is currently being prepared and a capacity expansion is on the table to return the MCG to the top 10 of the world’s largest stadiums. “If you go to India, for example, people know the MCG before they know the Sydney Harbor Bridge,” Victorian Sports Minister Steve Dimopoulos said. “We want to ensure that it remains an iconic location for the next fifty years.”
Outside the ground were a crowd of inflatable kangaroo outfits and a horde of men wearing Viking helmets decorated with gold tails. A family of four from Queensland had come down for the first two days, matching their outfits in lemon yellow and a mosaic of cockatoos. Tomorrow there would be pineapples, according to the mother’s plan, although the son had outgrown his and would be wearing his Australian sweater.
Nearby, a middle-aged Indian man and woman took off their puffer jackets for a photo under the Boxing Day Test sign. It was an English couple of about the same age who came forward to take the photo. Then the Englishman shyly asked, “Would you mind doing one of us?”, just as the group was about to disperse.
Another Englishman, Rob Goliah, arrived on the ground before the match in lycra. He had driven from Melbourne in Derbyshire, through 22 countries, to the Victorian namesake to raise money for medical research. His cross-border journey was celebrated with the international language of a ‘shoey’. His beer was the first of many Boxing Day beers to hit the floors.
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