Melbourne Cricket Ground: From Gavaskar’s ton to 13-year unbeaten run, for India ‘M’ in the MCG stands for merry

In the outdoor nets, where Travis Head would have a stint after his successful fitness test, coach Andrew McDonald was throwing to his spectacled son and the assistant coach Michael Di Venuto was watching his teenage son unfurling gorgeous cover drives – almost as good as the old man’s. A glimpse of a flamboyant cover drive on a bent knee, the father’s signature shot, would have been the cherry on top; perhaps it shall come next Christmas Day. All around happy laughing faces.

MCG has always had that kind of happy association with the outside world, especially the Indian fans. Never mind this generation which hasn’t seen India lose a Test here since 2011, or the end 70’s when Bhagwat Chandrasekhar sent 12 bewildered Aussies on their way and Sunil Gavaskar hit a hundred to win a Test here.

This happy association has been present despite the results, though the good ones certainly have helped. Like Ravi Shastri driving his Audi at the MCG after the triumph at the World Championships in 1985. Even Gavaskar walked off, threatening to take his partner Chetan Chauhan with him, before better sense prevailed from the manager at the G. Though in revisionist history that moment of regret from him has now been turned around by Fox Sports of all people as the moment India began standing up for themselves. They started with that visual in their promo for this current series, the narrator Justin Langer saying ‘And it all began here with Sunny’.

But above all for generations of Indians waking up to old-fashioned specialist alarm clocks to watch the cricket in Australia, MCG was the happy space. It didn’t trigger the tremors up the spine as the old hot and spicy WACA could. It wasn’t the Gabbatoir where the visiting batsmen used to struggle with seam movement and bounce, and stood no chance. It wasn’t the almost subcontinental tracks at Sydney or the flat track of Adelaide where the oldtimers would murmur dismissively about good knocks ‘Yeah good, but it was just Adelaide or SCG’ as if tons were flooding for Indians overseas, even in those venues.

But there was something about MCG, especially once the Boxing Day instant tradition set in from 1980 on. It was still typically Australian pitch, a wholesome Australian venue with 90,000 sunscreened and often intoxicated fans hollering, and where the sun and light bounce off the seats and cast a charming hue to the proceedings – be it day or night.

One of the more famous and familiar photographs, a regular centre spread feature in sports magazines of the past, was of the long shot of MCG from outside, with its light towers on, wrapped in this ethereal orange-ish hue.

A perfect poster to fumble with cello tapes and plaster on the bedroom walls as kids. MCG and SCG were the acronyms that Indian kids were aware of pretty early in their lives. And MCG could be further shortened and just called the ‘G’, and they would still know and recognise it.

Above all, the fans at the stadium: the sheer number of the people boxed in together, the notorious barracking crowd of Bay 13 which has been romanticised and vilified – the romance emerging from it being the personification of the burly surly drunk abusing Aussie fan and the vilification coming from the fact that the posh card-carrying members who get plied with free drinks all day can at times be more obnoxious than paying members of the 13, who are caught in the perception-bubble about them and feed it further.

“One significant factor about this Test is that the Aussie fans can’t ‘other’ the Indians as people from a faraway exotic land,” says Dr Thomas Heenan, who teaches Sports Studies at Monash University in Melbourne. “The days of that kind of ‘othering’ are gone. Not because of the cricket and IPL, that may be more so for the players. For the regular fans, the reason is the large number of Indian population who live in this country, especially more in the bigger cities. They are constantly interacting, working, socialising, partying or observing with the Indian-origin people for a while now. The Indian population has exploded in recent years; the last cricket series was during the pandemic crowd-less affair. This series has been different in that regard and I am interested to see how that plays out on the Boxing Day Test.”

A hundred at the old WACA was rated above everything else as the dragon-taming moment of triumph and hence it was a main protagonist in the myth-making of a teenaged Sachin Tendulkar when he stood on his toes and cut away at Perth. It was when Tendulkar became Sachin for a generation; respect and love melting into each other.

A double hundred from Ravi Shastri at the SCG was liked but tinged with the perceptions about the pitch. Mohammad Azharuddin’s hundred at Adelaide in 1992 against Shane Warne and Merv Hughes in a losing cause was loved for its gorgeous shots but not as much respect due to the conditions. Rahul Dravid’s double hundred in the first innings of 2004 Adelaide and the cut shot in the second, the match-winning moment, is lauded for what it signified – a rare Test win in Australia, but not as much perhaps for the knocks.

MCG is the wholesome Australian cricket venue: good pitch, great crowd, and the fact that it comes around usually around new-year’s eve. A good performance here will be celebrated, respected, loved, and admired by both Australians and Indians. Which Indian player is ready to soak in all that adulation and be the star at the G?