MCG in the market for day-night Ashes Test if Perth falls over

Should Perth lose its Ashes Test nothing is stopping Cricket Australia from scheduling a second day-night match of the series, in a mid-January slot that has historically delivered huge crowds to the MCG.

Sources told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that the tour agreement between Australia and England places no restriction on the number of pink ball matches, meaning the way would be open to a floodlit game in the eastern states to balance the loss of the broadcast-friendly Western Australia time zone.

Big crowds have often flocked to the MCG for day-night games in January.Credit: Getty Images

Tasmanian lobbying to hold the fifth Test at Hobart’s Bellerive Oval has stepped up since the WA Cricket chief executive Christina Matthews conceded her state was no better than a “50/50” chance to host the final match from January 14-18 due to the vast array of broadcast and technical staff needing to travel to Perth.

Options at the disposal of the Tasmanian state government would include an arrangement with CA to underwrite any difference between Hobart attendances and Bellerive’s full capacity. Still more ambitious would be an offer to do a similar deal against projected revenue for a match played in a larger venue such as the SCG or MCG.

What’s not in doubt is the fact that day/night fixtures at the MCG and SCG in mid-January have always tended to attract vast crowds during school holidays, even if they have traditionally been of the white ball variety.

The overall average for Australia’s January day-night ODI matches at the MCG between the late 1980s and the start of the Twenty20 era in 2008 is just shy of 62,000. For Australia v England matches during the period, the attendance shoots up accordingly: 73,282 in 1995, 82,299 in 1999 and 78,625 in 2007.

In more recent seasons, January T20 matches have consistently attracted huge crowds, including for Big Bash League derbies between the Melbourne Stars and Renegades. These games included a stunning 80,883 for the derby in January 2015, and 71,098 for the same fixture the following year.

Both the SCG Trust and the Melbourne Cricket Club have reached out to Cricket Australia in recent weeks to offer their assistance, although it is thought that staging back-to-back games at the SCG would be a harder sell than to return to the MCG two weeks after the conclusion of the Boxing Day Test.

“We’ve snuck another [pitch] in right beside it,” the MCC chief executive Stuart Fox told 3AW radio of the pitch for December 26. “We’re never cheeky about these things because we’ve lost two grand finals and I don’t like seeing other states pinch content. But we’re ready if we’re needed, and if Cricket Australia just accidentally made a phone call to us and said, ‘We need you to host a second Test,’ we’d be ready to go.

“It’s pretty simple, I’ve spoken to Nick Hockley and said there’s a spare pitch there if any of the states get into trouble with a border closure, we’re happy to help out, but we know we’ve been at the opposite end of the conversation where we’ve lost content. So, I’m hoping we get this Test and series away with little disruption.”

England’s director of cricket, Ashley Giles, said overnight that the tourists were awaiting further clarification from CA around the status of the Perth Test, and also an update about possible complications for the group of families due to fly into Melbourne ahead of Christmas due to the emergence of the new Omicron strain of COVID-19.

“We’re obviously hoping it won’t affect anything,” Giles said on Sunday night. “There are going to be changes to those border controls in terms of our families being able to travel etc. and we clearly hope that’s not going to affect us.

“But we are in the hands of national and local governments. We always knew things could change. We will do everything we can to make sure the families are accommodated and of course that the players are happy.”

England are due to begin a four-day practice match against the England Lions in Brisbane from Tuesday, although heavy rain forecast for southern Queensland are likely to curtail the fixture. Ben Stokes has revealed that he suffered a heavy blow to the arm in training on Sunday, although he continued to bat after receiving attention from the team physio.