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'Are you not entertained?' Why two-dayer was no less of a Test
In a glass case on the third floor of the Melbourne Cricket Ground sits a neon pink suit worn by Robbie Williams for his show at the 2022 AFL grand final.
The Robster's performance in front of 100,024 footy fans was seen as a triumph.
You might not like Robbie Williams. You might think Robbie Williams is the greatest gift to music the world has ever seen. You might take a reasonable stance in the middle, acknowledging Kids is a belting track and Rudebox is awful.
The point being, entertainment can take many forms. You like what you like. There is no one way to produce music, literature or even Test cricket.
Test cricket has unrivalled depth. It is hard to think of another sport where the playing is so dependent on conditions.
The weather, the time of day, the ball – the list is endless. Most important of all is the pitch.
If Test cricket is art, the pitch is the canvas on which the players paint their masterpiece.
The fourth Ashes Test between Australia and England at the MCG was Test cricket cubism, the great game broken apart and stuck back together in abstract form, with a hint of Brydon Carse batting at number three.
This is not a defence of the pitch which produced England's first Test win in this country for almost 15 years and the second two-day Test of the series.
Leaving 10mm of grass on the surface, resulting in 36 wickets falling in less than six sessions, is not a fair contest between bat and ball. Not so much the Boxing Day Test, but the Boxing Days Test.
But any suggestion this was a diminished spectacle, and one that should historically be marked with an asterisk as not a proper Test, is wide of the mark.
Test cricket is a rich tapestry, 2,615 parts and counting. Sometimes, like in Melbourne, the ball does all sorts for the seamers, sometimes it turns square on a dust bowl. Sometimes the pitch is flat as a pancake, other times it spits like a cobra. Some matches drag on in interminable tedium, others are over in the blink of an eye.
This is the understanding we all buy into when we devote time to the game. The thrillers are all the more thrilling because of the investment made elsewhere.
Certain variables are accepted more easily than others.
Australia play an annual pink-ball Test, out of step with the rest of the world. A year ago in Multan, Pakistan responded to being beaten by England on the flattest pitch imaginable by using the same pitch for the next Test, dried by industrial fans and garden heaters. Old Trafford somehow manages to complete Test matches despite the permanent threat of the Manchester rain.
The argument in Melbourne was that the balance was tipped too far towards the bowlers, that the best players were unable to showcase their talents because of the conditions. That this was a lottery, not a contest between bat and ball.
Test cricket is about problem solving – reading the conditions and adapting accordingly. The two highest individual scores in Melbourne were made by Travis Head and Harry Brook, two of the best batters in the world. Australia's batters made more mistakes than England, so the home side lost.
Try telling the England fans who have endured 18 winless matches in Australia that this was not entertaining.
In a corner of the bottom tier of the MCG, thousands waved their flags and sang their songs, creating a party atmosphere in a bastion of Australian sport.
There was optimism as England surged with the ball on Saturday morning, a song with unprintable words when Ben Duckett was giving the tourists momentum with the bat and unconditional love when Ben Stokes and Joe Root led the celebrations of an England win longed for like few others.
The MCG has form for pitch problems in Tests where England have avoided an Ashes clean sweep. Eight years ago, they arrived in Melbourne 3-0 down and were presented with a pitch with all the life of a pulled Christmas cracker.
Alastair Cook ground out an unbeaten 244 over seven hours at the crease, only 24 wickets fell in the drawn Test and anyone who sat through it needed therapy afterwards.
MCG pitches have been spicy ever since, culminating in this year's jalapeno. Neither Cook's match nor this one is ideal – they are extreme ends of the spectrum – yet value, significance and history can be attached to both.
Four Tests into this current series, it is the two-day match in Perth and this one in Melbourne that will live longest in the memory.
"It's not the death of Test cricket at all," said Cook of the Boxing Day Test of 2025. "The people who have been lucky enough to see these two days have been treated to some real entertainment. Different entertainment.
"There is a tinge for all of the people who were due to come tomorrow, and had been looking forward to it tomorrow, and they are going to miss out on a special occasion.
It's all well and good criticising the pitch, criticising the ground staff. It is a sign there are so many moving parts to preparing wickets. They have left too much grass on it. There's a bit of me frustrated with the last two days, even though I've enjoyed the carnage of it.
Cook was playing the last time England won a Test in Australia, 5,468 days ago. Back in 2010-11, England managed three wins in this country in the space of six weeks, all by an innings. Since then, they have been ritually humiliated in Australia – batterings in Brisbane through to slaughters in Sydney.
In the build-up to this Test, Stokes spoke on Christmas Eve like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The captain talked about protecting his players after they surrendered the series in three Tests and the squad then became the subject of an investigation by director of cricket Rob Key over their drinking in Noosa.
In the days that followed, Stokes' players protected him, restoring the smile to the skipper's face.
Carse, England's new number three, delivered his best bowling performance of the series, while Josh Tongue is the breakout star of the tour.
Jacob Bethell justified his selection with an unflappable knock in the second innings, while only Brook could have made the audacious 41 when England found themselves 8-3 in the first innings.
These are baby steps, certainly not enough to guarantee the futures of Key or head coach Brendon McCullum, but something to build on for the final Test next week.
At the very least, Melbourne 2025 joins some of the other England standout performances in Ashes dead rubbers, like 1998 on the same ground, or 2003 in Sydney.
As the England supporters slipped away into a glorious Melbourne evening, taking their songs to Federation Square, the Southbank or the Crown Casino, the players gathered on the outfield to begin their own celebrations.
Enjoy the drink, boys. You've earned this one.
Source: BBC
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