22 Dec 2010

Cricket Australia confident of World Record crowd

6:39 am on 22 December 2010

Cricket Australia is confident the MCG will host a world-record crowd of 91 thousand for Sunday's opening day's play of the fourth Ashes Test.

The record of 90,800 was set at the same venue in February 1961 during the fifth Test against the West Indies.

Four years ago the record almost fell despite cold conditions as 89,155 fans attended the opening day of the Melbourne Test despite Australia already holding a 3-nil advantage.

CA chief executive James Sutherland says he's confident of getting close to a capacity on Sunday and getting 300 thousand over the five days.