Australia ease past Sri Lanka in T20 but small MCG crowd concerns Maxwell

Glenn Maxwell hopes a poor crowd for Australia’s Twenty20 win against Sri Lanka was more to do with Covid-19 and not with the public’s loss of appetite for international cricket.

Just 13,175 people turned out for Friday night’s match, the fourth of the five-match series, making it the lowest crowd for a T20 international ever at the MCG. There were similar poor turnouts for the first two games of the bilateral series at the SCG last week.

After the highs of the blockbuster Ashes series, when big crowds packed out stadiums for all five Tests, the T20s against a largely unknown Sri Lankan squad were always going to be a hard sell for Cricket Australia. But the sight of the MCG’s Great Southern Stand being completely shut as the home side made it four wins from four was not a great look.

“I did notice that when I came out for the warm-up, it was probably the first time for an international game I’ve seen that,” Maxwell said of the famous stand not being open. “You can understand why people are staying at home.

“We’ve had a pandemic going on for two full years now and people are still probably a bit wary of going out. With the end (of Covid-19) hopefully so close to being in sight, hopefully people can get the confidence to come out and enjoy a good show out there.”

The crowd would have been much lower if was not for the strong Sri Lankan community in Melbourne. Sri Lankan fans made up about three quarters of those watching, with the Ponsford Stand at the city end of the ground looking more like the middle of Colombo. They went home disappointed, though, after Josh Inglis continued his impressive start to international cricket, powering Australia to a six-wicket win.

The Western Australian has looked at ease since debuting