Boxing Day

Boxing Day the ideal time for some great stoushes 

The Boxing Day Test rarely lets fans down, but five such matches stand out from the rest, writes Tim Lane.
'Are you going on Boxing Day?" It's a frequently asked question in Melbourne (and this year, elsewhere) in the lead-up to Christmas and no further detail is required. The Test match starting on December 26 has become an institution. For a fixture whose permanence doesn't extend deeper into history than two decades, the so-called Boxing Day Test is a great and conspicuous tradition.
In Melbourne, there is the first Tuesday in November, the last Saturday in September (although times are changing) and Boxing Day. They are the holy trinity of Australian sport.
Yet cricket's day of days has been enshrined only in the modern era. While a couple of matches in the 1950s were played across the Christmas period, the first Test to start on Boxing Day was in 1968/69. Until the 1980s, Melbourne Test matches had started on December 26 on only three occasions. As recently as 1989, a one-day international was played at the MCG on Boxing Day. The 1994 Ashes Test, in which Shane Warne took his famous hat-trick, actually began on Christmas Eve.

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For decades, Melbourne's holiday Test match was played over the New Year period, beginning in the last days of December. Boxing Day was preserved for that other ultra-serious event, the Sheffield Shield clash between Victoria and New South Wales.
It was on the West Indies' return to Australia in 1968/69, eight years after the fabled ''Calypso Summer'', that the first Boxing Day start to a Melbourne Test occurred. It was an inauspicious beginning - chilly, the temperature not quite reaching 17 degrees, with the cricket rain-interrupted and slow. But the seeds of a tradition were sewn.
More than 40 years later, the thought of Melbourne's annual Test match starting other than on Boxing Day is unimaginable. The cricket match is as inextricably linked to the day as the leftover ham that's enjoyed by well-prepared spectators as they watch. Oh for the good old days of the extra bottle of riesling from the previous day's table also being allowed through the turnstiles.
Today is the 30th occasion on which the Melbourne Test has started on Boxing Day and it's timely to reflect on which of those matches have risen above the pack.
In seeking to choose five great Boxing Day Tests, it's necessary to look past some, despite their drama, controversy and brilliance. Foremost among those is the 1995 match between Australia and Sri Lanka in which Muttiah Muralitharan was "called" by umpire Darrell Hair for bowling with an illegal action. That Boxing Day will never be forgotten, or cease to be discussed, by cricket folk for the drama and arguable nature of what transpired. But it must be said that the match itself wasn't a great one.
In 1987, consummate tailend batsman Mike Whitney survived the last over on the final day from Richard Hadlee to force a draw.
In 1990, the history-neglected, string-bean left-armer from the west, Bruce Reid, took 13 wickets to destroy England's hopes in a tight match. In 1991 the same bowler took another 12, this time against India.
There have been matches distinguished by double-centuries from Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting, and there was the blazing, opening-day 195 from Virender Sehwag. There were also extraordinary partnerships: between Mike Hussey and Glenn McGrath for Australia, and JP Duminy and Dale Steyn for South Africa. I can find room for none of these in my top five. Here's why.

5: 1975 - Thommo flattens Windies

This is the one that started it all. In the momentous summer of 1974-75, and again the following season, the Melbourne Test began on Boxing Day. The 1975-76 series against the West Indies - considered to be for the unofficial world championship - was level at one-all after two games and all roads led to Melbourne. On Boxing Day, 85,661 - the second-largest official crowd to that time for a day of cricket - went to the MCG. And they weren't disappointed. Jeff Thomson produced a whirlwind performance, ripping out Fredericks, Greenidge, Rowe, Kallicharran and Lloyd, to set up an Australian win. The match may have been one-sided, but its mark on the potential of Boxing Day cricket remains.

4: 1998 - Lions in winter

This was the Boxing Day Test without Boxing Day action - rain preventing a ball being bowled on day one. With the Ashes already retained by Australia, and Melbourne in a summer cold snap, a sense of gloom and futility pervaded. Yet, with extended playing time on the days that followed, the match finished late on the scheduled fourth day. And it produced a thrilling and unforeseeable upset. After Australia gained a 70-run first-innings lead, only a hard-hitting 60 from the maligned Graeme Hick provided England's bowlers with a defendable target. Set 175, Australia cruised to 3/130 - and lost. Dean Headley took 6/60 and, for once, Steve Waugh's inclination to not shield tailend batsmen from the strike failed the team. England home by 12 runs.

3: 1992 - The messiah is born

This match is notable for two particular reasons - it put Australia ahead in a series against the mighty West Indies and, more significantly, revealed Shane Warne as a bowler who could win a Test match. Australia had gained a significant first-innings lead, largely due to centuries from Mark Waugh and Allan Border, and eventually set the world champions 358 to win. Visiting captain Richie Richardson and hard-hitting opener Phil Simmons went for them. Approaching lunch on the final day, with tension mounting and all four results possible, a thunderbolt hit world cricket. The young leg spinner, Warne, ripped his flipper through Richardson's defences and turned the game. After lunch he took six more wickets, finishing with 7/52, and the future had arrived.

2: 1981 - Hughes' masterpiece

Selections one and two occurred in consecutive summers and the good fortune of the era is all the greater given the horrendous state of the MCG square. Yet the treacherous pitch contributed in no small part to the stature of the 1981 match. A terrifying West Indies' pace attack threatened to bowl out Australia for fewer than 100 on Boxing Day until defied by one of Test cricket's greatest innings. It was Kim Hughes' finest hour, the day on which his brilliance and bravado were harnessed amid the most challenging and threatening of circumstances. After Terry Alderman hung on to enable his fellow Sandgroper to complete a century, a third West Australian bestrode the stage. By stumps, Dennis Lillee had reduced the Windies to 4-10 in reply to 198, prompting perhaps the MCG's loudest-ever roar when he bowled Viv Richards with the last ball of the day. Thereafter, even Australia's 59-run win felt like an anti-climax.

1: 1982 - England win a heart-stopper

At the time, it equalled the closest finish by a margin of runs in Test history, yet it wasn't just a tense climax. Each of the first three innings lasted precisely a day: England 284, Australia 287 and England 294. Australia was thus set 292 to win. This time, though, its batting failed and at 9/218 the match was England's. Allan Border had been in poor form and. With nothing left to lose, and in a made-to-order rear-guard role, he found not only his touch but an ally in Jeff Thomson. By stumps on day four, 37 of the seemingly impossible 74 runs needed had been achieved. The MCC threw open the gates on the fifth morning for a session that might have lasted one ball. A crowd of more than 20,000 rolled in and Border and Thomson battled on. Just when a stunning Ashes-regaining win was within touching distance, when an edged boundary would have been enough, Thomson nicked Botham to Chris Tavare. Still the drama wasn't done. The ball bounced from Tavare's hands and, for a moment, hung in the air … to be gleefully snatched by Geoff Miller. England had won by three runs.