The fight for the Ashes is over. But the Boxing Day Test is definitely not dead

3 hours ago 1

Opinion

December 26, 2025 — 5.00am

Just because the last two Tests of the Ashes series are again dead does not mean that they are not brimming with life, gravitas and meaning. No Ashes Test can be fully, incontrovertibly and certifiably dead.

For a start, this time, these Tests are Australia’s common cause. The most frequent adjective heard about the country in the sombre aftermath of the Bondi Beach massacre is “divided”. Cricket can’t be a panacea, but it can and does bring people together in a purpose outside and greater than themselves. It’s a trivial purpose in the scheme of things, but shared nonetheless. Who knows, it might even drown out screeching politicians?

Whether or not the Ashes is alive, the Boxing Day Test is always an occasion.

In an Ashes series, that sense of fraternity can be extended to the Barmy Army. They’re as mad as only Englishmen in the midday sun can be, but let’s admit it: they’re admirably mad. Let’s also admit that the state of the series makes them somehow less grating. They can sing until they’re hoarse, but Australia still will hold the Ashes when they go home.

Boxing Day at the cricket is a tradition, which makes it significant outside the scoreline in any one series. It’s a secular feast day, with all the rites. Christmas solemnities dispensed with, we gather at the MCG as if at a cathedral, greet old friends, break bread, run through a familiar service – but no less cherished for that – and the next day, spiritually renewed, half of us head off to the beach.

Have a look as they converge from all points in a (Travis) heady rush on Boxing Day morning. At the cricket on Boxing Day, and wherever it is broadcast, you can feel the nation’s pulse.

Players will never write off Boxing Day. The series may be technically dead, but it will be plenty perky enough when, depending on who wins the toss, Brydon Carse is rearing them at Travis Head or Mitchell Starc is scything away at Zak Crawley’s feet.

Sometimes, but not often enough, the contest of the day should be left to stand for itself. Surely, we are not so dead in our souls that every occasion needs a prize for it to matter. Not everything has to fit into a bigger picture to be worth its while.

Whatever the stakes or their lack, pride in performance can never be underestimated. Shane Warne took his 700th Test wicket in a Boxing Day dead Ashes rubber. Steve Waugh made his memorable last-ball hundred in Sydney in a so-called dead Ashes Test.

Every match counts, figuratively every ball in every match, too. The Boxing Day Test last Ashes series was notionally dead, too, but try telling Scott Boland that his 6-7 on debut was by the by. Try telling anyone who witnessed it.

Both teams arrive at the MCG a little battered: Australia physically, England in every way. Oddly enough, for a team in as dominant a position as Australia, individuals have much to prove.

For England, the whole team do. They have not done justice to their undoubted talent, been stubborn to the point of reckless in pursuing their Bazball blueprint and so have felt the wrath of their countrymen as only the English can mete it out. Now the whole Bazball project is on the line. In their besieged circumstances, no match can be dead.

There are other reasons why this showcase Melbourne-Sydney swing is as alive as it is dead. One is the World Test Championship, in which literally every match counts.

For those not paying attention, the top two on the table will play off in 2027. Presently, Australia are on top and England are languishing. Further defeats in this series would drive them nearly out of contention. Between them, reigning champions South Africa have a conspicuously soft draw. That makes these last two Tests a sort of Ashes sub-series.

Then there is the foot-on-throat imperative. Post-Adelaide, Crawley said that a 3-2 scoreline would make this a “pretty good series” for England. It sounded like clutching at straws, but it contains a kernel of truth.

On each of Australia’s last two tours of England, they lost the last Test at the Oval. Both were dead rubbers in terms of the Ashes, but both defeats cost Australia outright series wins, and that still irritates them as a stone in a boot irritates. Australia cannot lose this series, but they would hate to lose even a little gloss from it. But depletion is going to test them.

The second-last time England won an Ashes series in Australia in 1986-7, they were rampant but relaxed their guard in the fifth Test and lost a very dead rubber.

That night, reporters put it to captain Mike Gatting that it was not a bad thing for cricket overall for Australia to have this consolation prize.

“Bollocks,” Gatting said, or words to that effect. To his mind, England had been lulled into giving Australia a sucker’s break.

How prescient he was. In nearly 40 years since, England have won only two live Ashes Tests in Australia.

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