The Ashes – Fifth Test, Sydney: Take your ‘pink’ seats

 

The Ashes — Fifth Test, Sydney: Take your ‘pink’ seats

 

It feels like half a lifetime has passed since the end of the Fourth Ashes Test in Melbourne. Granted, it was last year in late December 2025 that the match took place and now the calendar has ticked over into January 2026. The reality is that not even a week has gone by and yet I find myself in a cricket torpor. Perhaps it’s an illness as I’ve also tired of the endless scrutiny and theorising about blades of grass that has occupied the minds of experts and those ‘in the know’. Has ever a patch of lawn been subject to so much attention? Where I grew up, it was an extravagance to even consider having a grass pitch at all. Fortunately, the Big Bash League games have kept me engaged in the ‘sport of summer’. Cue the #PinkTest in support of the McGrath Foundation!

 

What is now known as the #PinkTest had its genesis at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 5 January, 2009, Day 3 of the Sydney Test during the 2008/09 series between Australia and South Africa. The day was deemed Jane McGrath Day and saw the iconic SCG flooded pink. Everything that could be changed colour received the pink makeover. Likewise, the crowd had taken the opportunity to don pink attire creating a ring of pink against the green of the field. The visual effect was a fitting symbol of the McGrath Foundation’s core purpose: to complete the circle of care for those enduring the cancer journey. In tribute to Jane McGrath, who’d passed away barely six-months earlier from the complications of breast cancer, the day was especially moving.

 

Jane and her husband, Australian fast bowler ooh-ah Glenn McGrath, established the Foundation in 2005 to raise funds to aid in the provision of breast care nurses to support women and their families from rural and regional Australia impacted by the disease. In 2009, it was hoped that, with the donations generated from the Sydney Test, the charity would have means to fund fifty two breast care nurses.

 

Sixteen iterations of SCG #PinkTest on, the McGrath Foundation’s network has grown to 343 nurses, it has supported 167,000 individuals and their families and the web of care is no longer restricted according to gender or cancer type.

 

A few days out from the Fifth Ashes Test and seventh #PinkTest, the McGrath Foundation has sold 1,091 of 480,00 virtual pink seats available online at pinktest.com.au. At just $25 AUD for a gorgeously pink seat that would have Dame Barbara Cartland in raptures, it’s a chance to donate to a vital cause. Personally, I’m eyeing off a pink baggy green.

 

What of the actual cricket? I hear you ask. 

 

Back in 2009, Australia won the SCG test by 103 runs. The eternally fit Peter Siddle who continues to outplay many of the younger generation in the BBL, was Player of the Match. As the final game in the 2008/09 series, the captain of South Africa Graeme Smith was named Player of the Series. The accolade may have eased the discomfort Smith was in after sustaining a broken finger in the first innings of the Sydney match.

 

Regarding the impending Test, I hope the SCG curator and ground staff have been wearing blinkers and have had their noise cancelling earphones on. Their good work in preparing the Sydney pitch is bound to be interrogated to the n^th degree.

 

 

Read more reports on the Ashes series HERE.

 

 

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