Hobart is firming as the host venue to secure the fifth and final Ashes Test.
Prime Minster Scott Morrison openly endorsed Tasmania’s bid to host the series decider beginning on January 14 after Perth lost the Test due to the Western Australian government’s strict quarantine requirements.
“I’m in the Tassie camp. I think it will be great to see Tasmania share in this Ashes series,” Morrison told reporters.
“For there to be one in Tassie, I think would be great. Particularly as there was the Afghanistan Test, which obviously didn’t proceed for clear reasons.
“I know they’ll put on a great show. That’s a matter for Cricket Australia, but a Prime Minister’s allowed to have an opinion.”
The MCG is also in the frame to host the match as the Victorian government pushes for a second Ashes Test in Melbourne this summer.
SEN’s Gerard Whateley thinks selecting Hobart’s Bellerive Oval as the host venue for the day-night Ashes series finale would be the “wrong decision”.
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“I feel like it should be at the MCG,” Whateley told SEN Breakfast.
“I know everyone’s decided this series is over, that’s your prerogative, but you have to assume, I think, that the 5th Test is the decider.
“And the decider for an Ashes deserves the biggest possible spectacle and stage and the biggest possible spectacle and stage is the MCG and it’s a totally different Test to Boxing Day because it’s a pink-ball Test.
“But the federated nature of cricket and Cricket Tasmania lost their Test match through no fault of their own, so they’re going to get it back – I just don’t think the history of Bellerive and its capacity to draw a crowd is worthy of the fifth and deciding Test.
“It may well be worthy of a dead rubber Ashes Test, which might be what happens, but my personal view is that it should be at the MCG and open to 65,000 on Day 1 and onward from there.
“Tassie, it is beautiful, it hasn’t been a great Test venue in the past. Hopefully this is their moment to show us.”
Hobart hasn’t hosted a Test match since 2016.