One of the all time great Test matches

The crowd showed up and the cricket delivered

“The MCG is a shrine, a citadel, a landmark, a totem. It is to this city what the Opera House is to Sydney, the Eiffel Tower to Paris and the Statue of Liberty is to New York; it symbolises Melbourne to the world" - Greg Baum.

Somewhat fittingly, at lunch on the fifth day, we paused at lunch to celebrate the storied career of Greg Baum, one of Melbourne’s finest sports journalist, master of the filed-on-deadline, word-perfect match report, and a veteran of many cricket tours past.

A seismic shift has taken place over the past five days at the venue Baum so eloquently described above. So many people had filled the stands of the stadium by lunch time Monday that this fourth Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy has erased records set over six days in the Bradman era (1936-37 Ashes: 350,543) and for any Boxing Day event (2013-14 Ashes: 271,855).

The oldest form of the game is taking on shapes unimaginable to all but the most farsighted until recently.