The Melbourne Cricket Club says it is up for discussions about moving the starting time for Day 1 of the Boxing Day Test.
The idea, championed by Gerard Whateley, would see the first ball on Boxing Day bowled at 12:00pm to accommodate a larger crowd to start the day.
As has become par, this year’s Boxing Day again saw the crowd almost double from 10:30am to just after lunch.
While it remains a decision for Cricket Australia, MCC CEO Stuart Fox agrees it’s a conversation that needs to be had.
“I think you’re using the data to run a good case here and it’s hard to run against,” Fox told SEN Test Cricket’s Whateley in response to the crowd jumping from 32,000 to 62,000 after Day 1 had got underway.
“I love the traditional timeslot and I love the fact that it hasn’t changed but I think we’ve got to be up for the discussion and I think that data suggests that if you did start around midday, you’re going to have a lot more people inside the stadium watching the game.
“I think that’d be really special.”
Cricket Australia has indicated it’s not a proposal they would consider any time soon.
CA chief executive Nick Hockley has stated he supports the usual 10:30am start. But as Whateley noted on Friday morning, tradition and convention are not to be confused.
“I’m amazed how people defer to tradition when there is no such tradition,” Whateley said.
“10:30 is not the traditional starting time of Boxing Day, it was 11:00 for a long time. It’s a lazy argument to say tradition is this, it’s not. The television era moved the start times from 11 to 10:30 so that the news didn’t get interrupted.
“So it’s completely flexible when these Test matches start. It’s convention, not tradition, and once convention doesn’t fit anymore it should be altered.”
As of 10:00am on Day 4 the MCG had seen 146,842 fans come through the gate across the Test match, with just 3,598 in attendance to start Friday’s play.