A paean to the Sydney Cricket Ground Test
The SCG is worth its weight in green and gold.
Editorial
January 8, 2026 — 6.22pm
Beneath beautiful clear blue summer skies, the Sydney Cricket Ground looked the perfect venue for the New Year’s Test as the final act of the Ashes went down to the wire.
By mid-morning on Thursday, the English were all out for 342 and Australia began the 160-run chase to win the series 4-1, finishing with five wickets in hand.
Alex Carey celebrates Ashes victory with Cameron Green.Credit: Getty Images
It was that rarest of occasions – a fifth day’s play in a Test match on the very ground that some say is the graveyard of English Test careers. Indeed, some 14 Englishmen have played their last Test matches there lately.
But such pleasantries aside, the SCG Test has become bigger than the game itself and a lovely way to begin the new year just when Sydney needed a reminder we have rather a lot in common.
On Sunday, the opening day of the Fifth Test, the SCG was bursting with a record attendance of 49,574, the highest since the days of standing room only.
Providing Sydney with one more week of entertainment before a full-scale return to work, the Test is a sporting event and carnival, with spectators creating their own crowd culture as the match develops.
It unites not only Sydneysiders in celebration, but across the country, millions watch or tune in, making the Sydney Test a huge and significant cultural and economic event in our national life.
It also honours the memory of Jane McGrath by raising massive funds for breast cancer research in Australia. Off the ground and cricket aside, in a social sense, our Test match now eclipses the famed Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
While the SCG has shone over the past few days, Melbourne did not do the game any favours on Boxing Day when it cut its own throat by not cutting the MCG grass.
The Melbourne Cricket Club chose to leave 10 millimetres of grass on the pitch for the Boxing Day Test. Last year, it cut it to seven millimetres for the Test between Australia and India, a classic contest that went deep into the fifth day and set a new five-day attendance record of 373,691 fans, plus millions watching the broadcast.
The MCG’s mullet made it easier for the Australian and English bowlers to move the ball sideways, and, combined with questionable batting from both teams, 20 wickets fell on day one and the match fizzled, finishing late on day two. Broadcasters fumed and disappointed cricket fans scrambled to change their plans, while Cricket Australia had to refund more than 90,000 ticket holders.
The Melbourne debacle caused a revenue shortfall of $25 million for Cricket Australia and the pressure was suddenly on Sydney to deliver a pitch that could last the five days.
The SCG rose to the occasion magnificently.
The MCG has a big two years ahead, headlined by the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand next summer and the 150th anniversary Test between Australia and England in March 2027.