The Boxing Day Test in Melbourne is facing uncertainty as a result of a prolonged dispute between Cricket Australia and the Victorian government.
This comes as Victoria's state government is the only one still refusing to reach an agreement with cricket's governing body on a six-year contract. The agreement was supposed to start for the 2025–2026 season when England will next visit Australia as part of the Ashes series.
As per the Sydney Morning Herald, a minister has discreetly accused Cricket Australia of intentionally employing the delay as 'leverage' during prolonged negotiations.
As previously reported, Cricket Australia has stated that there is a "good runway to look at our future content" and is not committed to keeping Melbourne and Sydney as the traditional host cities for Test matches after this season.
Some states, like South Australia and Western Australia, have raised concerns every year about perhaps stealing the Boxing Day Test from the MCG and the New Year's Test from the SCG, stating that nobody should be able to control the big hits.
Although Peter Roach, the head of CA scheduling, stated that they gave "great weight in historical matches," the pursuit of maximising attendance and income will be crucial to the outcome.
'We think there is great weight in historical matches because it drives that continued attendance and that continued support, but we haven't locked in any venue for future years,' Roach noted reporters.
'We look at it historically one year at a time. We have a runway now where we can look at the best outcome for the next seven or eight years for all of our venues. We can work with our venues our governments and our state associations to plan thoroughly ahead. We see it as there is enormous competition for our, I guess, marquee content, which is terrific. We know that year after year we have great content to take around the states.'
The state of Victoria is expected to experience a debt issue as well, by June 2028, net debt is expected to reach $187.8 billion.
There will be no MCG redevelopment for at least four years.