Will Rohit Sharma, Usman Khawaja, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant finally stand up?

“Sin”, screamed the text on his black T-shirt. He was standing on the steps of the Flinders Station, near the federation square of Melbourne City centre, and evangelising about how to save oneself from the sins. “Just the right time before Chrmas Day”. A irate lady walks to him, muttering something, and she is politely asked to move away. Then an Indian-origin man walks across to him, laughs, and asks what about the day after Chrmas: “Who will win the Boxing Day Test?!” The man mumbles and shoos him away, “What boxing day Test? What are you talking about?” Laughter erupts among those milling around. An art chalk-drawing a portrait of Mother Mary on the pavement laughs too. It’s Chrmas Eve evening, and yachts are bobbing on the Yarra river. People walk here and there, on the bridge, under it the water. The riverside pubs and cafes are spilling with happiness. Beside many of the tables, shopping bags lie on the floor. Bright sunshine at 7:00 pm even, gifts, festival, and then the Boxing Day Test next day with 90,000 expected on a day where temperatures are forecasted to soar around 40 degrees. It’s the traditional way to spend New Year eve, at the Test that’s synonymous with cricket in Australia forever.
Only it isn’t. “Boxing Day Test is a perfect example of the power of marketing,” says Dr Thomas Heenan, who teaches sport studies at Monash University in Melbourne. “Australians love instant-tradition,” Heenan laughs. “Only after Kerry Packer, who ran the rebel league of world series that threatened the traditional structures of cricket, announced truce after he got the TV broadcast rights to cricket did Boxing Day game really become a thing.”
Only four Tests had been held on December 26th at MCG before 1980 – in 1952, 1968, 1974 and 1975. Three more were held, scattered across decades, in Adelaide. The 1975 game against West Indies where nearly 86000 people heaved around the MCG on the first day when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson ripped through the West Indies squad set off the adminrators’ interest but Packer had intervened with his white-ball and coloured-clothing cricket.
“It’s not a coincidence that once Packer won the rights in 1979, Boxing Day Test became a thing from next year. Instant tradition! The city of Melbourne itself had lost its manufacturing hubs and was looking to organise itself around sport. The AFL grand final, the Melbourne Cup, the Australian Open, and this cricket game fitted right into the scheme of things. The real Boxing Day game tradition was the domestic der between New South Wales and Victoria, that goes back to the late 1880’s, but it’s not fashionable to say that, these days!”
Inside the MCG, a TV panel ls Indians who have starred at the venue and it starts from Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, the beguilingly pacy-spinner, who took six wickets apiece in both innings to bowl India to a famous Test win in December 1977. “Great performance, but mind you, not a Boxing Day Test; that one started on December 30th!” Keenan says.
It would be mainly reserved for the cricketing heavyweights of West Indies and England, initially. “India began to start featuring in the casual Australian cricket fan after the 1983 world cup triumph. These days, it’s not just the competitive sporting rivalry itself but the sheer number of Indians who live in Australia that makes the spectacle even more riveting. What was the last great sporting spectacle at the G? The India vs Pakan T20 world game, of course! Boxing Day Test hopefully lives up to it!” says Keenan.
An equal battle
Just before he wished “Merry Chrmas” and got up to leave, the Australian coach Andrew McDonald would say the 1-1 was probably a “fair reflection” of both teams. Rohit Sharma echoed the sentiment later. Both men would dismiss talks of momentum and past, but still cling to suspiciously similar-feeling sentiments from the past game. McDonald would talk about how they were ahead but rain beat them at Brisbane. Rohit will talk about how the saving of the follow-on and the game reflected the “fighting attitude” of his team who first showed it after “getting bowled out for 150 in Perth”.
The scoreline is a fair reflection of two below-par batting units who haven’t come to terms with the moving Kookaburra newish ball that does its bit for nearly 30 overs before it goes soft and loses its teeth. The two team’s batsmen haven’t been able to stand up to the bowlers. That Australians have scored more runs is perhaps down to the fact that there has been a gulf between Bumrah and the rest. But the quality of the cricket has overall been not so memorable; one can isolate Bumrah’s first spell at Perth, a beaut of a ball from Harshit Rana to take out Travis Head there, a Pat Cummins’ special to rattle the off stump of Rohit Sharma at Adelaide and such. But there have been enough mediocrity to spoil the memory.
India were looking decent in the pink-ball Test’s first innings but Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill would gift their wickets with loose drives to derail the innings – and the game. Again, at the Gabba, the Indian top order combusted, chasing wide balls or flicking straight to hands. It hasn’t helped that their captain Rohit Sharma is yet to look convincing in the middle. Prior to the series, he had imploded in a home series, looking to be rather too aggressive. Here, demoting himself to the middle-order, he has gone the other way, trying to survive but not quite able to do it.
More movement
On Monday, the pitch curator Matt Page talked the good talk: about how for the last two years, MCG has been producing pitches that have helped the fast bowlers do the damage with the new ball as they have been leaving more grass than before. “It won’t be as pacy and bouncy as Perth can be, but sideways movement has been there consently for two years now. And I expect the new ball to continue doing that on all five days.”
There was some rain on Monday afternoon, and the sun bore down harshly on Tuesday. Wednesday is expected to be scorching hot that the CEO of the MCG adminration issued a public plea about hydrating, sunscreens, and how 150,000 bottles of water (apart from the tap water) would be available. It’s set to cool down again from the second day on.
It will make an interesting decision at the toss. Would either captain want to put themselves through the wringer on that swelteringly-hot day on field or get tempted the presence of grass?
For a change, for the sake of 90,000 at the stadium and millions on the television, hopefully the batsmen will earn their money. There are several big names, a couple of modern-day greats, talented youngsters in Gill and Jaiswal and a new kid on the block in Sam Konstas – perhaps a couple of them will treat the audience to something special. It’s been great to see the bowlers do well, but how about some more fight from the other end? Travis Head has been sensational, though he is now fighting against a strain on his thigh.
It’s time for the other batsmen, the most mollycoddled lot in cricket, to reger their presence. Back in that 1977 triumph triggered Chandra, Sunil Gavaskar, who was out for a duck in the first innings, had responded with a hundred in the second to make sure Australia were set 387, before Chandrasekhar bundled them out for 164. It wasn’t quite Boxing Day, but in modern lore it has become one. Can Rohit or Virat do it here?
Will the 2024 version in a country that loves its “instant tradition” inspire the batsmen to punch?

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