page_title: Boxing Day Test
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Boxing Day Test / History
caption_attribution_description: Cricket crowd at the Boxing Day test in 2007, Australia.
context_page_description: The Boxing Day Test match is a cricket Test match held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia involving the Australian cricket team and an opposing national team that is touring Australia during the southern summer. It begins annually on Boxing Day and is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
context_section_description: By long tradition, a Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and New South Wales had been played at the MCG over the Christmas period. It included Boxing Day as one of the scheduled days of play, much to the chagrin of the NSW players who missed spending Christmas with their families as a result. The Melbourne Test was usually held over the New Year period, often starting on 1 January.
  During the 1950–51 Ashes series, the Melbourne Test was played from 22 to 27 December, with the fourth day's play being on Boxing Day, but no test matches were played on Boxing Day in Melbourne between 1953 and 1967. Because there were six Tests in the 1974–75 Ashes series, in order to fit them all in to the overall schedule, the Third Test at Melbourne was scheduled to start on Boxing Day. That was the origin of the modern tradition, although it was not until 1980 that the Melbourne Cricket Club and the Australian cricket team secured the rights to begin a test match annually on Boxing Day at the MCG.
caption: Cricket crowd at the Boxing Day test in 2007
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