Christmas is a joyous time for everyone to enjoy. It's probably the one day that everyone looks forward to all year. While the period is set for families to spend time together, sporting events do still occur during the festive period. It's interesting to learn that there was a Christmas Test match played in Adelaide.
For most Australians, cricket on Christmas Day probably means a backyard game with the family or maybe a spot of beach cricket. There may come a time when a BBL (a T20 league in Australia ) match is scheduled for Christmas night. There have been post-Christmas rumblings in the past couple of years and not just those caused by too many serves of plum pudding.
"I think there is a growing sentiment that it is a possibility," then-Cricket Australia's chief executive, James Sutherland, said on ABC radio during the Boxing Day Test in 2017. "We need to think about the right venue for it and we also need to consult widely. We understand it's not just a narrow-minded cricket decision [...] But I think it is an opportunity and it would be a good thing for the game."
It would be easy to believe such a concept imitates the sporting landscape in the U.S.A., where Christmas Day games have become a tradition in the NBA: five matches were played on December 25in 2016. NFL games have also occasionally been played on Christmas Day.
In fact, elite cricket in Australia has a history of Christmas Day play going much, much further back.
In 1926, South Australia hosted Queensland in a Sheffield Shield match that started on Christmas Day and thus began a tradition that continued until 1969. In most years during that time, the two teams met in a Shield fixture at Adelaide Oval that included play on Christmas Day - typically, Christmas was only a rest day if it happened to fall on a Sunday.
Occasionally, the South Australians would, instead, play the touring England side and in those cases, Christmas was made a rest day. Such was Adelaide Oval's affinity with Christmas Day cricket that twice the ground hosted Test matches that featured play on 25 December. In 1951, West Indies wrapped up victory on Christmas Day over an Australia side captained by Arthur Morris.
In 1967, Australia hosted India in a Test that started at Adelaide Oval on Saturday, 23 December. Christmas Eve was a Sunday, so it was the rest day. By Christmas morning - a Monday - the players were again out on the field representing their country. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this unusual occurrence is that hardly any of the Australians involved, recall playing a home Test on Christmas Day.
Ian Chappell: "We didn't play on Christmas Day... did we?"
Bill Lawry: "I don't recall it."
Alan Connolly: "I can't remember anything about it [...] It would be against my thoughts to play cricket on Christmas Day, that's for sure."
David Renneberg: "I didn't think it was Christmas Day that we played, I thought it was Boxing Day. I wouldn't play on Christmas Day if I could help it. I think there's enough of it. I think a bit of family time on Christmas Day would be fine."
Even the captain, Bob Simpson, was rendered almost speechless to be told that he had played an Adelaide Test on Christmas Day. "That's amazing!" he said. "What year did you say? Let me write that down…"
Then: "I've got no memory of it whatsoever, and I'm normally good at these sorts of things! I probably failed, did I?" Yes, Simmo, quite the failure: 55 in the first innings and 103 in the second.
Such were the protests from these players, the men who actually spent their Christmas Day in the field for Australia, that doubts began to creep in. Could the scorecard have been wrong? It lists the match as being played on December 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28.
Wisden noted the unusual circumstance in a surprisingly casual manner: "Abid Ali cleaned up the Australia batting on Monday (Christmas Day)."
Journalist, Rohan Rivett, in the following day's Canberra Times, wrote acidly of Australia's Christmas morning batting - Bob Cowper was "pathetic" despite making 92 - but complimented Farokh Engineer on his innings. "His 89 in 109 minutes while his colleagues gathered 38," Rivett wrote, "was champagne attacking batting which deserved the roars of a packed MCG, not the warm but pathetically thin clapping of the Yuletide hundreds scattered around the Adelaide Oval."
So, the Christmas Day Test of 1967 did really happen. Despite the lack of recollection from several of the Australians, at least two members of the XI are aware of the oddity. Paul Sheahan had good reason to recall the game, for it was his Test debut.
"I played my first Test over Christmas Day," Sheahan said. "It was a slightly weird feeling when you're used to having Christmas with your family and all of a sudden, you're out on a cricket field. It's very difficult to open the presents!"
"I'd have played on any day of the year [...] I think we were probably delightfully secular in those days. I don't remember there being any comment at all about having to play on Christmas Day. The only thing was that some were ruing the fact that they couldn't necessarily be with their families on Christmas Day."
Sheahan didn't bat on Christmas Day - he had made 81 on the first day of the Test and Australia lost their last four wickets for 24 on Christmas morning - but the bowlers had plenty of work to do as India reached 8 for 288 at stumps. Two of those wickets fell to Graham McKenzie and though he doesn't remember them, he does recall the fact of playing on Christmas Day.
"I think in my career I played two Christmas Day Tests - one in Madras and one in Adelaide," McKenzie said. "It was pretty unusual to play a Test match on that day. Up until lunchtime it was pretty quiet, and then quite a few people came after lunch and had a little rest up on the hill, after their Christmas lunch."
Despite Rivett's reference to the "Yuletide hundreds", crowds did generally turn up to Adelaide Oval on Christmas Day, though often in the afternoon. Approximately 6 000 spectators watched on Christmas Day in 1951, as West Indies closed out their victory over Australia. The crowd figure in 1967 is unknown but Adelaideans were accustomed to having cricket on Christmas.
Barry Jarman was Australia's wicketkeeper in the 1967 Christmas Test and though he has no memory of that particular match, he recalls spending several Christmases in the field for South Australia in their Sheffield Shield matches against Queensland.
"They just said, 'Turn up and play', and we played," Jarman said. "We did what we were told. There'd be hardly anyone there before lunch, and then after lunch a few straggled in, and then by afternoon tea there'd be a few thousand there."
Jarman, as a local player, could at least have his family Christmas dinner in the evening but not so the Queensland players, who would spend 25 December, year after year, at Adelaide Oval. Ken "Slasher" Mackay, for example, played in 13 of the Christmas Shield games from 1946 to 1963, of which ten featured play on 25 December.
"Cook and Wallis were the caterers," Jarman said. "I can remember they'd give us a very thin slice of turkey and a roast potato or two, some pumpkin and peas and that was it… There wasn't enough of it!"
In 29 of the years from 1926 to 1969, Adelaide Oval hosted cricket on Christmas Day and on the occasions when it didn't, that was often because Christmas was a Sunday and thus cricket's traditional rest day anyway. In two of those years, the Christmas Day game was a Test match.
Just five years after that 1967 Christmas Test, Australia hosted Pakistan in a Test at Adelaide Oval that started on 22 December. Play continued through Christmas Eve (which was a Sunday) but Christmas Day was made a rest day.
By then, the Christmas Day cricket tradition had died out, never to return - unless the BBL brings it back. "We need to think about the right venue for it," Sutherland said of a Christmas night BBL game. Adelaide Oval, given the history, would seem the logical choice."
The Test Match between Australia and West Indies:
After three days of swiftly changing fortunes, the West Indies at last wrested victory from Australia and so, for the time at least, restored a measure of equality to the series. Splendid bowling, especially by Frank Worrell and Alf Valentine, determined stroke play from the leading batsmen in the fourth innings and, above all, faultless fielding formed the keynote of the win, only the second suffered by the Australians in 29 Tests since the war.
On a pitch affected by rain, which seeped under the covers, 22 wickets fell for 207 runs during the first day's play. Lindsay Hassett stood down at the last minute because of a recurrence of leg strain and Aussie captain, Arthur Morris, won the toss and decided to bat first. Almost immediately, the turf revealed it's capricious character and none of the batsmen mastered the conditions. Worrell bowled throughout the innings and, with eager support from fieldsmen who crouched in an intimidating ring close to the wicket, he finished with the impressive figures of 6-38.
The West Indies, in turn, collapsed and though Everton Weekes, limping from a pulled leg muscle, defended skilfully, the West Indies lead was restricted to 23 runs. The pitch suited the left arm medium-pace bowling of Bill Johnston and he took six wickets at just over ten runs apiece. The day's shocks were not over, for in the remaining half-hour, Australia lost their overnight stop-gaps, Ian Johnson and Geff Noblet, to the wiles of Valentine.
The pitch had dried by the time Doug Ring and Gil Langley resumed next day and, in the easier conditions, the third pair scored 61 in 47 minutes before Valentine deceived Langley. Ring continued to show assurance against the spin of Valentine and Sonny Ramadhin but, after his dismissal, the scoring rate slackened until Miller and Graeme Hole came together in an adventurous seventh stand of 55. Subsequently, Valentine hastened the end of the innings and West Indies went in again, requiring 233 for victory. Roy Marshall pulled a muscle while fielding but he opened the West Indies second innings with Rae as runner. In such circumstances, Marshall was content to let Jeffrey Stollmeyer do most of the scoring and by the close of the day, the pair had put on 54 in 84 minutes.
So certain of the outcome were most people that barely 5 000 saw the final phase of the match; yet the Australian team clearly didn't subscribe to this resigned attitude. The opening partnership was soon broken and when Weekes and Worrell both left at the same total, 141, the West Indies still required 92 runs. At this crisis in the game, Australia paid dearly for fielding lapses. Three times Gerry Gomez was dropped and Robert Christiani, too, looked ill at ease during the early overs of their association. Gradually, however, the fifth pair fought out of this uneasy period. As the total mounted, Morris switched his bowlers and sought to tempt the batsmen into indiscretions but all to no avail. Midway through an afternoon of intense humidity, a flashing stroke to the sight screen by Christiani ended the tension.
I would be thrilled if a cricket match took place either on or over Christmas. Any match can be enjoyable to watch. I fully understand Sunday being a rest day. I believe that a Christmas match will add a little sparkle to the initial attraction. It must have been exciting to watch these games happen over the festive day.