Women’s Ashes Test to be played at MCG for first time in modern era

The 2025 Women’s Ashes will finish with a landmark day-night Test at Australia’s largest sports stadium, the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The Women’s Ashes will once again be played as a multi-format points series. However, in a change to recent schedules, the Test has been moved from the start of the series to the end in a bid to encourage attacking cricket and a result, and make it the climax of the contest.

The England and Wales Cricket Board held the Women’s Ashes at some of its biggest venues, like Lord’s and Edgbaston, last summer, and now Australia have followed suit.

The three one-day internationals, which start on Jan 12, take place at smaller venues (North Sydney Oval, Melbourne’s Junction Oval and Hobart’s Bellerive Oval), before T20s at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Canberra’s Manuka Oval and Adelaide Oval. The series concludes at the MCG from Jan 30.

That will be the first women’s Test at the MCG since 1949, and the first pink ball Test on the ground. Curiously, having scheduled a five-day Test at Trent Bridge last summer, this one will be just four days. There is reason to expect big crowds: when Australia won the T20 World Cup at “the G” in 2020, more than 86,000 people attended.

“[The Test is] an amazing opportunity for the team to play at such an iconic Australian cricket venue and in such a big occasion like an Ashes series,” said the great Australia all-rounder Ellyse Perry.

“That’s the next evolution for women’s cricket [and] more globally as well for women’s sport – we’re starting to see that happen more and more often across the board.”

England last won the Women’s Ashes in 2014. Australia retained the trophy last summer with an 8-8 draw. Administrators have decided to change the year of the series so it does not clash with the men’s Ashes.

The schedule for the 2025-26 men’s Ashes series is still being finalised, but in a break from recent tradition it appears increasingly likely that Perth, not Brisbane’s Gabba, will host the opener. The “Gabbatoir” has been a fortress for Australia (England last won a Test there on the 1986-87 tour) but has become tired and has fallen behind its rivals in the race for the most prestigious Tests. It appears likely to host the second Test, before Adelaide, the MCG and the SCG conclude the series.