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Just when it was looking like New Zealand might head to lunch with a few wickets still in the sheds, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Marsh stumped up with the key Black Caps wickets shortly after drinks in the first session.
From the moment Lyon trapped BJ Watling in front lbw, New Zealand lasted just eleven more overs.
They lost 4-7 initially, and their last five wickets for 53 all told, after Mark Craig decided attack was the best form of defence and Trent Boult set about writing a whole new textbook on defensive batting technique.
Australia won the first Test by 208 runs, and head to Perth for the second Test starting Friday full of confidence.
But the biggest question coming out of the traditional Brisbane opener of the international summer was not of what happened inside the boundary, but rather who was sitting outside it.
If a team falls in a heap before lunch and no-one was there to see it, did they lose the Test at all?
Despite the fact Cricket Australia were trumpeting a record Brisbane crowd for a Test against New Zealand, there was major concern expressed far and wide, and via most forms of media, that the Gabba crowd for the first Test was deplorable.
“Gabba Test in danger of being dropped as poor crowds turn out to catch Kiwis,” the back page of The Courier Mail proclaimed on Monday, walking that ever-fine line between genuine concern and hyperbole.
But have the Gabba crowds really dropped off Test cricket quicker than the Seven Network dropped the Jarryd Hayne-less San Francisco 49ers?
Well, sortakinda-not-really. It’s a bit more complicated than that.
It’s not a new phenomenon
No siree, Bob. An hour or so’s link-clinking and manual compiling and spreadsheet-building yesterday afternoon told me that outside an Ashes summer, Test attendances in Brisbane haven’t been brilliant for ages.
Much was made – or attempted to be made – of the fact a new record for New Zealand Tests at the Gabba had already been broken after Day 4, and that was certainly true. But in actual fact, since 2002, only the first Test against Sri Lanka to start the 2007-2008 summer had a higher attendance in a non-Ashes summer.
Television ratings were again strong over the five days – the evening sessions being the pick, in the range of 700-900,000 viewers across the five metro cities – but Gabba attendances in the 10-13,000 per day range have been quite normal for the last fourteen summers.
So suddenly this year has a couple of slow days – 6608 on Sunday, and 1373 on Monday – and Brisbane is in danger of losing its Test status? Come on. In fact going back to that ’07-08 Sri Lanka Test, the attendance over the last two days was remarkably similar: 7629 and 1285.
Anyway, if you reckon Brisbane was bad, just wait until we get to Hobart.
New Zealand is a tough sell
Pardon me? Number three in the world hosting number five in the world, with only seven ratings points between them? And coming only seven months since those same two teams faced off in the decider of a cracking World Cup which they co-hosted? Please.
It should’ve been the easiest non-Ashes sell ever. Australia-New Zealand sporting rivalry has been massive in 2015 – as so wonderfully listed by Ryan Buckland last week – and with the lowly West Indies to follow, this trans-Tasman series should have been marketed as the one to watch for sure.
But the key words there really are, ‘this trans-Tasman series should have been marketed’, because it seems CA’s marketing this summer was on the thrifty side. That could well be because of said lowly West Indies following, but only time will tell.
At any rate, New Zealand in Brisbane has consistently drawn more than India, South Africa, and the Windies since 2002.
India last summer – which was admittedly the second Test in a hastily reshuffled schedule after the Phillip Hughes tragedy – drew 9000 less than the Black Caps this year. Day 4 last summer – the last day of the Test – was the second-highest attendance of the Test, but even still, the total by the end of Day 4 on Sunday was 7905 higher.
It’s clearly not just because it was New Zealand.
It was a work day in November
Sure. Three of the five days of the Brisbane Test generally are. Only South Africa in 2012-2013 and India last summer have not started on a Thursday since 2002, and only India in 2002-2003, New Zealand in 2011-2012, and India last summer have not been played in November.
It was too early in November
A popular theory, this one. Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland told ABC Grandstand during the Test, “We would rather be a week later”.
“[Melbourne] Cup week is difficult… to create the noise and anticipation about it is very difficult,” Sutherland said.
Except that five Gabba Tests since 2002 have also started in Melbourne Cup week, and the non-Ashes Tests achieved similar crowd numbers over the first few days. Nice try, James.
It was too bloody expensive
See now, this is where we might be onto something. I’ve missed out seeing what the prices were on the Ticketek site for this Test, but there were a number of Roarers commenting in recent days about price increases and just how expensive it is to go to the Gabba now, in comparison to years gone by.
This mightn’t be a fair comparison, and I’d love to hear from anyone who bought Brisbane tickets this summer and in previous years, but I can tell you that my tickets for Day 1 in Sydney this summer were $15 dearer than last summer. In the same row of the same bay in the Victor Trumper Stand, even. Suddenly, last year’s Gold tickets have been polished up to Platinum level this year.
And when it was only just announced that Cricket Australia enjoyed a $99 million profit in 2014-2015, such a move to increase prices in so-called ‘lower-interest’ summers is never going to be received well.
Give us the pink
Queensland Cricket believes the Gabba Test is ripe to be played under lights and with the pink ball, and already there have been suggestions that South Africa next summer or Pakistan the following season could be talked into playing matches in Brisbane in day-night conditions.
“We are very supportive of the pink ball concept,” Queensland Cricket CEO Geoff Cockerill told The Courier Mail yesterday.
“We are very supportive of the Gabba having a day-night Test and we’re really looking forward to Adelaide and how it will work there.
“We think it will be a glowing success.” (Cockerill’s pun was very much intended, I’m sure.)
And maybe the pink ball would breathe new life into the Test and draw a bigger crowd next summer. It’s easily a better suggestion than beach cricket at the Olympics, and one that at least deserves consideration. But would it not also play into the evening storms that Brisbane tends to enjoy at this time of year?
Gabba cleaners thrilled with early mark
With only 1373 punters to clean up after, and maybe 2000 people all up, once you include players and officials, security and other staff, and the working media who wouldn’t for a minute consider leaving before the afternoon tea spread arrives, the cleaners were the big winners on Day 5.
“With contracted daily rates, and the prospect of knocking off before sunset, we heartily endorse CA’s new methods of marketing,” is what I imagine the Head Gabba Cleaner would’ve said. Small crowds aren’t all bad news.
***
So sure, the crowds weren’t great towards the end of the Test, but in reality, they were no better or worse than in any garden-variety, non-Ashes summer. It’s not a Brisbane-only issue, and it’s certainly not an Australia-only issue. But it is an issue that certainly needs attention.
Maybe the pink ball will help. I’m almost certain that a proper look at the actual cost and affordability of a day at Test cricket would reveal a level of increase over time that doesn’t match the quality of the product, nor cost of living increases over that same period.
But just spare me the ‘Test cricket is dying’, or ‘Brisbane might lose its Test’ carry-on.