A big crowd for a great spectacle

During the Boxing Day Test, the MCG is hoping to host the largest crowd ever at a cricket match with 91,000 people expected by Cricket Australia. But, Mike Selvey says in the Guardian that maybe the existing record of 90,800, who attended the match between West Indies and Australia at the MCG in 1961, should stand, for it was a series deserving of such a crowd.

That winter, West Indies toured Australia and under their first black captain in Frank Worrell, helped create not just a memorable series but one that remains a defining time in cricket history. No other sporting team have been embraced by the Australian public as were Worrell's men. In Brisbane they played out the first tied Test in the most dramatic fashion, before losing over the new year in Melbourne, winning in Sydney and drawing in Adelaide. 90,800 people attended the first day of the decisive match, at the MCG once more, a rain‑affected affair in which, amid some controversy, Australia scrambled a win by two wickets.