Talk about living in someone’s head.
Perth mayor Basil Zempilas has been criticised after taking a strange swipe at Melbourne cricket fans for the attendance of day one at the Boxing Day Test.
Despite days of rain, and warnings of poor weather, 62,167 fans made it to the MCG for the opening day of Australia’s second Test against Pakistan.
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It was the second-highest opening day crowd for those teams at the historic venue, and just below the 64,276 who attended day one against South Africa at the MCG last year.
But before the number was released, and during a lengthy rain delay where the many bars at the MCG were packed, Zempilas – who famously blundered at the 2021 AFL Grand Final when, as the ceremony host, he did not allow premiership coach Simon Goodwin to give a speech after Melbourne’s victory – took to social media to question why he couldn’t see many fans in the stands.
“Hmmmm. What’s their excuse? Not like you can go to the beach?” the former AFL commentator said.
However many fans pointed out more fans had made it on Boxing Day than made it across all four days of the Optus Stadium Test earlier this month (59,125).
While a larger crowd attended ‘The West Test’ than last year’s match at Perth Stadium, and per capita the attendance wasn’t too poor, WA fans were still heavily criticised.
“They’ll whinge and whine ‘oh, we should have more cricket’ but no one goes and watches it. Fill the joint and you’ll get all the cricket you want,” former Australian cricketer Simon O’Donnell said on SEN.
“Your football clubs fill it but the cricket just doesn’t get going and because of the unique nature of the WACA that drew people.”
Many more fans attended the Perth Scorchers’ first home BBL match of the season (28,494) than any day of the Perth Test (highest crowd on day two, 17,666).
The local newspaper declared this a major success given there were “no special event buses”.
They also dedicated an entire back page to criticising a Marvel Stadium BBL crowd of 14,893 for the struggling Melbourne Renegades.
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