In more good news to an already exciting Australian cricket summer, the Boxing Day Test match between India and Australia, has got a crowd boost. 30,000 fans will now be present on each day of the iconic Test match after Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton gave permission to raise the capacity by 5,000. Notably, Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the Boxing Day Test match has been held traditionally, has a crowd capacity of around 1,00,000.
The decision has been aided by Victoria’s another Covid-19-free day on Thursday. The state has not seen a single coronavirus case in over 40 days now.
Pre-sales of tickets for “Australian cricket family” will start from Thursday, whereas, the general public can book their tickets from Friday.
Also, there will now be 6,900 Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) members allowed entry for Boxing Day and each of the following days of the Test, up from 5700, with the rest of the stadium filled by the general public, AFL members and a few corporates.
India versus Australia series has allowed fans in the stadiums in the white-ball series’ as well. This is the first international cricketing fixture allowing fans in the stadiums since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.
The first of the 4 Test macthes between the two cricketing giants starts from December 17 in Adelaide.
Crowd capacity limit for the other venues
* First Test – Adelaide Oval (December 17-21) – Restricted to 50 per cent capacity, with 27,000 tickets available for each day
* Third Test – SCG (January 7-11) – Limited to 50 per cent of total capacity, or 23,000 fans.
