Fans snatch last spots for Boxing Day

The final 2000 seats to Boxing Day were snapped up in five minutes this morning and the last 1100 standing-room tickets disappeared 15 minutes later. Two hours later day two was also a sell-out and meant at least 18 days of the Test summer would be full houses in a series that has already broken spectator records for the game in Australia.

Melbourne's 95,000-seat stadium is the only one with spaces available during the Ashes after the last batches of public tickets for days one to four at Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Sydney went earlier this week. The MCG should beat its previous day mark for a Test, which was 90,800 for the 1960-61 series between Australia and West Indies, and set an Australian record attendance.

"This is an incredible result for Test cricket in this country and shows how much passion people have for the sport," James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, said. "As it currently stands, we could see 90,000-plus in attendance at the first two days of the Boxing Day Test, which is an amazing result." The overall record of 350,000 for a Test was set in 1936-37 Ashes series and Cricket Australia officials say it is also under threat.

Apart from Adelaide, sales for day five are expected to start only when the match goes the distance. Seats are still available for days three and four at the MCG, but about 10,000 tickets were taken for day two this morning and an extra 1100 standing-only entries were also accepted.

The MCG has plenty of vacancies for its three VB Series games involving Australia, England and New Zealand. The first Ashes Test starts at Brisbane on November 23 before the series moves to Adelaide and Perth before Christmas.