In they streamed, a steady flow when gates opened at 8.30am becoming near enough to a flood in the 10 minutes before play began at 10am.
Ultimately, nearly 17,000 spectators filed into Adelaide Oval to watch what turned out to be less than a session of cricket on day three. It was, in fact, the shortest-ever Adelaide Test in terms of balls bowled.
Marnus Labuschagne signs autographs in Adelaide after Australia’s Test win over the West Indies.Credit: Getty Images
Incredibly, the gathering to watch about 100 minutes of play was significantly more than the total attendance on day one of the Perth Test against Pakistan in mid-December – the very time slot that the South Australian Cricket Association is so desperate to secure for the next seven years.
The total crowd of 67,050 was better, in two days and one session, than Perth had managed in four.
Warmly as the crowd cheered every West Indian run, especially those clumped by the courageous last man Shamar Joseph, and as heartily as they celebrated Australia’s 10-wicket victory over a touring side heavily weakened by Twenty20 franchises, it was not an entirely happy gathering.
Among the spectators spoken to by this masthead, there was considerable angst at the Wednesday start to the match, the scheduling of the West Indies here two years in a row, and the swift progress of the game to the extent that it was all over before the weekend.
That disquiet was shared in the Committee Room of the SACA, where the association chair Will Rayner and chief executive Charlie Hodgson discussed the future of the Test match with their Cricket Australia opposite numbers Mike Baird and Nick Hockley over the first two days of the game.
At present, the most likely scenario for the next two years is for the Gabba to resume its traditional role as the opening Test of the summer, before Perth and Adelaide follow. The SACA’s preference is for the “Christmas Test” immediately before Boxing Day.
“I support the concept of Christmas Test. It’s got to be against a premium side, rather than being relegated to the second team that comes,” SA’s Premier Peter Malinauskas told ABC radio on day one.
“I think that would represent a good recognition from Cricket Australia that this is a state that turns up, is loyal to the sport and wants to grow Test cricket.”
Back in the late 1990s, the SACA was angered when the then Australian Cricket Board rejigged the home summer to conclude Test cricket by early January, meaning Adelaide no longer got a Test match around the January 26 long weekend.
But in the two-and-a-half decades since, Adelaide’s spectators have adapted to December, planning their years around the Test, which fell into a reliable pre-Christmas window due to a deal struck between the SACA and CA in 2014.
On Friday morning, the sizeable roll-up for spectators to see nothing like a full day mounted a powerful argument for that preference to be chosen by CA over the next seven years. Australia’s captain Pat Cummins said occasions like Adelaide’s were key to the future of Test cricket as a whole.
“It was fantastic,” Cummins said. “Every year we say this is one of our favourite Test matches because with the crowds it feels like the whole city gets behind it. Also, the stadium and the pitch and all those things, they’re always immaculate.
Spectators watch Australian players warming up in the nets in Adelaide.Credit: Getty
“So we absolutely love playing here, and I think this week epitomised that – 60,000-odd people for two-and-a-half days on a weekday in a slot where it is not normally played there. It has been really well-supported, pretty awesome.
“You want to make sure that it is like this week where 60,000 people turn out, you want to keep incentivising Test cricket because the fans want it, especially here in Australia. So whatever we can do to keep incentivising Tests above some of the other franchise cricket at times, but I don’t really know how that looks in practice.”
There are major financial considerations here that connect the need for strong Test match teams to the jostling for prime scheduling slots each summer. A Test that gets to day five in Adelaide is far more profitable for both the SACA, through its membership, and CA through selling public tickets and corporate boxes.
But even in three days, Adelaide has reaped comfortably more dividend than Perth did in December, or Brisbane can be expected to deliver at the Gabba from Thursday, when the use of a pink ball makes an even swifter game possible than this one.
CA’s own projections rank Adelaide as the third most lucrative Test match in the country, after Melbourne and Sydney.
While Perth’s cavernous stadium has always offered the possibility of bigger crowds, Adelaide’s appetite for Test cricket is genuine and lasting. On the evidence of the 16,991 spectators who walked in to see the game finish comfortably before lunch, it is only going to get stronger with greater opportunities.
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