351,000… and counting: Best Boxing Day Test breaks record for cricket audience in Australia | cricket

Not even the great Don Bradman attracted such a large audience. At the MCG on Monday, more than 50,000 fans had passed through the turnstiles by lunchtime, bringing the total attendance to the Boxing Day Test between Australia and India to over 351,000.

The five-day attendance, which increased during Monday afternoon’s match, is now the highest attendance for a Test in Australia. It surpassed the 350,534 spectators for the six-day Test between Australia and England at the MCG in 1937, in which Bradman scored 270 in one of the performances of his career.

Joel Morrison, general manager of events and operations at Cricket Australia, said officials were “overwhelmed” by the support from fans during the game. “The Border-Gavaskar Trophy is a blockbuster event and it was fantastic to see so many visitors throughout the summer,” he said.

The record was set despite a lower-than-expected turnout on Boxing Day with 87,242 people taking part. Every ticket was sold, but temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius kept thousands of buyers away. This meant the attendance fell well short of the Boxing Day record of 91,112 against England in 2013.

But subsequent turnouts exceeded expectations: 85,147 turned out on the second day, 83,073 on the third day and 43,867 on the fourth day. Another surge on Monday pushed crowds past the record.

Melbourne Cricket Club chief executive Stuart Fox said it was a remarkable turnout and his organization was proud of the record.

“We could sense that we were going to hit this significant attendance milestone – viewing figures that we would previously only have associated with an Ashes series,” he said.

“The all-time MCG Test match attendance record is even more remarkable when you consider that the game was played over six days in 1936-37, when the stadium had a capacity of around 88,000 spectators.”

The game will not come close to breaking the record for the largest Test cricket audience – over 465,000 watched the 1999 match between India and Pakistan at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

But the colorful stands and carnival atmosphere during the Boxing Day Test are a testament to the state of the rivalry between Australia and India. Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley described the pre-series clash as “the heavyweight fight everyone wants to see”.

A large proportion of visitors to Melbourne this year were Indian fans. Morrison praised the turnout, saying it showed “the power of cricket to bring communities together”.

At the start of Monday, both teams still had a chance of winning and fans took advantage of cheaper tickets. There was a $10 fee for adults, and those under 15 were admitted free. “A huge thank you to Australian cricket fans for your continued support of our great game,” Morrison said.

Interest in this Test series has helped calm critics of the five-day format, which now competes with one-day and T20 games on the international calendar.

The Ashes clashes between Australia and England have retained their status as cricket’s most prestigious arena, and the growing rivalry for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy – backed by India’s economic power – means Test cricket, at least among these three nations, is in good stead seems to be health.

The MCG will host another Test this summer. The multi-format women’s Ashes will conclude with a pink-ball clash starting January 30.