Women’s Ashes Test at MCG facing uphill battle for traction as Australia dominate England

From hot air balloons to flaming cricket bats, Cricket Australia has tried everything it can to promote the women’s Ashes Test at the MCG, but fate has conspired against them, writes DANIEL CHERNY.

It was in the depths of Melbourne’s Winter, with the attention of the sporting world stationed on Paris, that Alyssa Healy and Tahlia McGrath gathered outside the MCG for a photo shoot to promote the women’s Ashes Test to be held at the colosseum six months later.

Concerns over emissions be damned, these were striking shots, with Healy and McGrath in baggy greens and whites, posing with their game faces in front of a blaze.

A special bat was then set alight for captain Healy to hold. No cricketers were hurt in the process.

No one could fairly accuse Cricket Australia of not trying to pump up this match as the culmination and centrepiece of the series, and indeed the final home international of the summer.

Cricket Australia has lit a fire trying to get cut-through for the Women’s Ashes Test at the MCG. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

There have been television commercials, a hot-air balloon in Melbourne and a double-decker bus in Sydney. CA has cannily sought to leverage the enormous excitement and interest in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series to boost the women’s series – which has been decoupled from the men’s Ashes to provide the women with clearer air.

Women’s Ashes press conferences have been strategically placed to be in proximity to men’s matches to maximise media traction.

Healy commentated for Fox during the Boxing Day Test. In short, if you’ve paid attention to the men this summer, you’d be hardpressed not to know the women are playing too.

And yet despite CA’s best efforts, circumstances are conspiring against the four-day pink-ball Test, beginning on January 30, from realising its box office potential.

The match is the first women’s Test at the ‘G since 1948-49, and there is tremendous symbolism in the nation’s leading female players being able to emulate their male counterparts by playing the sport’s premier format at Australia’s most iconic sporting venue.

The trouble is though, the series will probably be well and truly over by the time the sides convene in the Victorian capital next Sunday.

England’s lacklustre performance so far has left the Test at risk of being a dead rubber. Picture: Steve Bell/Getty Images

Such is the nature of the multi-format series, Australia needs to win just one of the three Twenty20 internationals this week to keep the trophy away from England until 2027 at the earliest, with the Aussies having held bragging rights since 2015.

Australia’s depth and class, combined with the tourists’ sloppiness and poor game awareness, means that the hosts could retain the Ashes at the earliest possible opportunity: Monday night at the SCG, just eight days after the series began nearby at North Sydney Oval in front of a sellout crowd of more than 6000.

This was always the risk of having the Test at the end of the series, with the Big Bash League fixture ensuring it was impossible for CA to get consecutive nights free until late January.

History shows that a match being a dead rubber doesn’t sway Melbourne crowds from attending men’s Test cricket, but a women’s Test is a one-off event that lacks the ritual attendance of the male game. It will be a much tougher sell.

The series scoreline is one thing, but the larger threat to eyeballs will come from the men’s team.

Like London buses.... Australia will be playing two Tests at once. Picture: Jason McCawley/Getty Images

The cramped nature of the cricket calendar means Australia’s Test series in Sri Lanka begins on January 29. Though the combination of a Galle turner and the pink Kookaburra makes both matches a strong chance of ending early, at face value that is four full days of overlap, with the day-night Test falling in the identical timeslot as the day match in Sri Lanka given the time difference.

Ordinarily CA would be thrilled at a free-to-air broadcaster picking up the rights for a non-Ashes overseas Test tour, but the news last week that Seven had taken the unusual step of purchasing the Sri Lanka series doesn’t bode well for the women’s Test ratings.

Seven is yet to announce how it will slice and dice its simultaneous commitments to men’s and women’s Tests, and Nine has run into enough trouble over the years for picking and choosing which tennis matches to show on its main channel and which to relegate to Gem.

The cold hard truth is that given the option of which Test to watch, most casual cricket fans will pick the men.

While the condensed nature and importance of a World Cup final meant the 86,000 crowd and 825,000 national television audience on Gem for the 2020 women’s T20 decider was never likely to be replicated for the upcoming Test, the chances of another Matildas-esque moment are dwindling through factors outside CA’s control.

Originally published as Women’s Ashes Test at MCG facing uphill battle for traction as Australia dominate England