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Start time for the Boxing Day Test is 10:30am local, 11:30pm GMTThe Spin: subscribe to our weekly cricket newsletterAny thoughts? Email or tweet @JPHowcroft“Festive greetings, Jonathan,” and to you Andrew Benton.“As Elton John once sang, ‘It’s a sad, sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd’. It would be a fair miracle if England were to regain the urn, the change in attitude and aptitude needed to win three in a row is surely beyond them. If miracles are going to happen, there are many far more worthy causes to which they should be applied. Fielding mistakes and giving away wickets should have been ironed out in the summer, and it will be interesting to see if the pressure applied by management over the past few days has any result. At least some learning could then be legitimately be said to be happening.”The Boxing Day Test has become, in the words of Mark Butcher, “a major part of cricketing folklore”, but it was a surprisingly recent addition to the calendar. England and Australia first met on that date in 1950, when the second Test resumed on 26 December after two days off. The following year, West Indies played Test cricket on Christmas Day itself, which one tourist declared “sacrilegious” and was not much more popular with the home side. “I have never played on Christmas Day before in my life and don’t like having to do so now,” an unnamed Australian said. Continue reading...