Courtesy: Cricket Australia
On Thursday, December 26, the Australian cricket team will host India in the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne. It is also known as the Boxing Day Test meaning Australia’s annual cricket tradition, which has evolved over the years into captivating fans worldwide after being formalised by the Cricket Australia (CA) in the 1980s, and it attracts huge crowds every year at the MCG.
The first records of a Boxing Day in cricket match in Australia are from the year 1865, prior to the start of Test cricket, when Victoria and New South Wales, the two Australian states, played each other in a Sheffield Shield match. From 1950s to 1970s, Australia hosted their arch-rivals England for a Test match around the Boxing Day time as part of the Ashes series, but the occasion hadn’t become full blown tradition till that time either.
Boxing Day Test became annual tradition in Melbourne, Australia in 1980s
After no Test matches were held on Boxing Day from 1953 to 1967, the wheels of time started to turn slowly but surely in setting it up as a tradition. Following the introduction of Nine Network in the live television broadcast scene in the 1980s, the Boxing Day match ended up becoming a marquee date, not only on the international cricket calendar, but also on the Australian sporting culture and beyond.
Over the last 40 years or so, the Melbourne Cricket Ground has been at the center of the Boxing Day Test, hosting it each year with thousands of fans attending it in the stadium. The largest crowd in the history of the Boxing Day match in Tests at the MCG had assembled on December 26, 2013, when Australia played against England in front of 91,112 people in attendance in the Ashes series.
India haven't lost any of their last three Boxing Day Tests against Australia in Melbourne
While Australia have dominated Boxing Day Test cricket matches at the MCG in the last few decades, India haven’t lost on any of their last three appearances here. After earning a draw in a high-scoring Boxing Day in cricket Test match in 2014, India have managed to defeat Australia by 137 runs in the year 2018 before getting the better of the hosts back-to-back, winning by eight wickets in 2020 during the pandemic era after being bowled out for their lowest Test score in the previous match of the BGT series.
