It is time for a reassessment of a sporting and cultural institution. To start with, the name is plain wrong or, at best, misleading. “Boxing Day Test” suggests something done and dusted between dawn and dusk. Like Cup Day. Or Anzac Day. But what unfolds at the MCG today is often just the start of something.
And it can be something big. Last year’s Test featured the late-career arrival of Australian fast bowler Scott Boland, who claimed the wickets of six befuddled Englishmen for a miserly seven runs. The match was all over before lunch on the third day – a problem for broadcasters, who’d budgeted five days for what was meant to be a stirring contest.
Scott Boland had an extraordinary Test debut on Boxing Day.Credit:The Age
This time the adversary is South Africa. Its players first graced the MCG on Boxing Day exactly 70 years ago, when Richie Benaud sent down leg-breaks for the home team (which lost). The South Africans were welcome arrivals after woeful recent performances by the once-mighty West Indies in Perth and Adelaide. Cricket experts studied statistics and wildebeest entrails and declared that the Proteas would offer much stiffer resistance … Then they lost the First Test in Brisbane inside two days.
All the more reason to get to the ’G today. For some it is an annual ritual and possibly the only cricket they will witness until next year. Others will see more of a dining-room than the game, which will be unfortunate if proceedings are as exciting as the opening day’s play in 1981, when Australia batsmen – with the stirring exception of centurion Kim Hughes – succumbed to the Windies’ fearsome fast bowlers. All out for 198.
But the best was still to come. As shadows lengthened, the visitors lost both openers and then the imperious Viv Richards – bowled on the last ball of the day by Dennis Lillee, whose shirt buttons always lost the battle against his heaving hairy chest.
Sometimes, though, the most drama comes at the end. The final day of the 1982 Boxing Day Test began with England needing a solitary wicket for victory. Admittance to the ’G was free, as the game could have been over in one ball. Australia, meanwhile, required 37 more runs – a tall order, given that one of the batsmen, Jeff Thomson, was a bowler. But Thommo, partnered by batting barnacle Allan Border, hung on. The number of runs required diminished in inverse proportion to the Englishmen’s pulse rate.
The famous Ashes Boxing Day Test in 1982. In a low-scoring game, Allan Border and tailender Jeff Thomson (pictured) needed 37 runs on the final day of play.
I wasn’t at the ground that morning, unlike several thousand increasingly raucous spectators. I was inside The Age office in Lonsdale Street. This was 40 years ago, before livestreaming or instant updates. TV coverage was limited. I recall an extraordinary number of Age staff crammed into the office of the sports editor. He had a radio that actually worked, unlike the rest of us.
With a mere three runs – one boundary – needed for a miraculous local triumph, I was distracted by the sight of a deputy editor, a distinguished journalist who’d covered the Falklands War, sitting on the floor, head in hands, moaning. This was worrying. Defibrillators, like smartphones, hadn’t been invented.
Even the denouement was dramatic. Thommo essayed one last swish of his bat. The ball flew to an Englishman, who dropped it, but was then snaffled by another fieldsman. Border later recalled thinking: “Oh my God! We’d lost. After all that, we’d lost.” Our radio was switched off. We left the sport ed’s office, mostly in silence apart for some muttering about it being only a game.
Except that it’s not. This Test is an event: an occasion; a seasonal rite dating back to 1950, when the game (against England) actually started on December 22 and included a two-day break for Christmas. December 26 was actually the third day’s play.
These days, this fixture doesn’t have much competition for attention. Politicians have fled parliaments, offices are closed and not everyone is obsessed about great deals in home appliances at Boxing Day sales. There is plenty of time for endless discussion about weather, team selections and – most importantly – the pitch. Over the past week the MCG pitch has endured the kind of relentless attention that only Harry and Meghan could understand. Words used to describe pitches also apply to people: flat; lively; treacherous; dead. Language is colour-coded. The Brisbane pitch was said to be too green.
How will the MCG pitch behave today? We can only wait and see. For all the wise words spoken and written in the lead-up to this contest, the truth is that nobody really knows anything. Until the first delivery is sent down, it is all speculation and background noise.
At the very least, let us hope that play on Boxing Day is followed by one more day, then another and – wouldn’t it be luvverly? – a couple more. If not, well, for both broadcasters and MCG curator it will represent a stern test of character.
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