Which sport features a traditional Boxing Day Test match?

Which sport features a traditional Boxing Day Test match? Cricket features the traditional Boxing Day Test match.

The best-known Boxing Day Test is an annual international cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia. It begins on 26 December and normally involves Australia and a visiting national team during the southern-hemisphere summer.

The tradition grew from older cricket played at the MCG during the Christmas period. A Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and New South Wales had included Boxing Day play as far back as 1865. The Melbourne Test was later scheduled to begin on Boxing Day in the 1974–75 Ashes series, helping establish the modern pattern.

The Australian Cricket Board formally made the fixture a regular tradition in 1980. Although Australia’s Melbourne match is the one most people mean by “the Boxing Day Test,” the term can also describe comparable Test matches in New Zealand or South Africa. It is still specifically a cricket fixture—not a tennis tournament, rugby match, or football game—and Test cricket can last up to five days.