The heart of the game

Melbourne's centrepiece is its cricket ground. The self-proclaimed Australian capital of sport hosts a grand prix, a tennis grand slam, horse racing, and a beloved local football code. Sitting at its foundation, though - historically and quite nearly geographically - is its earliest love: of cricket. Melbourne's Boxing Day Test is a great calendar event in world cricket, and it was here that the first Test match was played, in 1877, and then the first one-day international, in 1971.

Throughout time, Melbourne has seen a host of cricketing triumphs, including Bradman's first two Test centuries (at his most successful Australian hunting ground), Garry Sobers' exhilarating 254 for the Rest of the World, and England's dance performance of the Sprinkler. It has also witnessed tumult: it was here that Bodyline was first unleashed, where Greg Chappell instructed his brother to bowl underarm, and where Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled.

Melbourne loves an occasion and has a strong culture of "going to the game". The opening day of 2013-14 Ashes Test, a dead rubber, was attended by more than 91,000 people. A similar reception awaits the World Cup, and as it did 22 years ago, Melbourne will prove a magnificent setting for some of its chief occasions, including the final.

The venue
The Melbourne Cricket Ground - rarely called anything but its initials, or just "the G" - perches upon a gentle hill a ten-minute walk from the city. It is an awe-inspiring edifice of concrete and steel, with high, tiered stands encircling the oval like a fortress wall. Seating close to 100,000, a ground of this scale is unknown in cricket outside the subcontinent and dwarfs any other Antipodean ground.

It is, in fact, too large for careful observation of cricket. Ground level gives atmosphere but limited vision, while a seat in the aerie provides a longer sight but diminutive view of play. Where the MCG delivers, though, is in atmosphere and spectacle, making a visit to the ground memorable even if the game isn't. Watching sport at the MCG is a privilege and the most auspicious occasion of a cricketing visit to the country.

Ground page | Fixtures

Great matches
Australia v Sri Lanka 2010
Visiting Australia for a soupçon of an ODI series, Sri Lanka came upon a beat-up team with stand-in captain Michael Clarke. They didn't take their opportunity until late in the game, though, when at 107 for 8 chasing 240, Lasith Malinga teamed up with the imperturbable Angelo Mathews. Malinga made a half-century, Mathews stayed composed, and Murali won the match with a four. It smacked Australia into a miserable summer.

England v Pakistan, World Cup final, 1992
Pakistan's finest moment in international cricket came as the charismatic Imran Khan led a team of giants to victory over England. Wasim Akram wondrously turned the tables to provide the defining moment of the last Antipodean World Cup. It poses a stiff return run for the final come March 2015.

Top performers in ODIs
Most runs Ricky Ponting, 2108 at 56.97 | Top score Mark Waugh, 173 v West Indies
Most wickets Shane Warne, 46 at 22.6 | Best bowling Ajit Agarkar, 6 for 42 v Australia

Home team
While Melbourne has produced the most celebrated of all legspinners in Shane Warne, Victoria is perennially underrepresented in international cricket. Currently only Peter Siddle, along with Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell in ODIs, are regular starters for Australia. Victorians inevitably blame this upon political machinations by their northern rivals in New South Wales, and indeed two of its great natives, Keith Miller and Neil Harvey, moved to that state mid-career.

While Victorians love to sing the praises of their own, they are quick to adopt outsiders, and extend that policy to deserving tourists. Never was this more apparent than for the illustrious 1961 visit by West Indies, when a record crowd crammed into the MCG for the final Test and then massed in great thousands for a farewell parade through downtown Melbourne.