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Australia and England meet in the fourth Test of the Ashes series at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary from 10:30am (AEDT).
Compliments of the season everyone and welcome to the home of Australian cricket and one of the most romantic days on the Australian sporting calendar.
Despite the Australians holding a series winning three-nil lead, there is never a truly ‘dead’ rubber between these two nations.
After the disaster of Perth, where England began the match so well with a more than competitive total on the board before succumbing to the constant pressure of the Australians, the visitors will need to show more fight against a confident home side.
Much pressure will sit on Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad’s shoulders, as both have been underwhelming in this series and skipper Joe Root has also disappointed.
The Australian attack has had the measure, and more, of the English batsmen and Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins will look to continue that trend, albeit without their mate Mitchell Starc, who sits out with a heel injury.
The statistics across the board suggest that the Australians have utterly dominated this series, however, there have been moments and sessions where the English could have applied some telling pressure on the baggy green.
Sadly for the ‘poms’, this series has been a continuation of the world trend of home dominance in Test Series’ and on a special day for Australian cricket at the MCG, it will be hard for the visitors to reverse the patterns of the previous three matches.
With England potentially looking to make selection changes and with numerous players well off their best form, the locals will look to apply the blow-torch once again.
Prediction
The Boxing Day Test is far too important for the Australians to allow the English even a sniff in this one. Look for the most dominant performance of the series as a relaxed Australian team attacks mercilessly.
Catch all the action on The Roar live coverage from 10:30am (AEDT).