Ashes 2025-26: Spectators create attendance records in Adelaide Test

Adelaide oval Crowd (Source: Mark Brake – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)

Packed crowds and huge viewing audiences saw Australia retain the Ashes by taking an unassailable 3-0 series lead after winning the third Test in Adelaide by 82 runs on Sunday, December 21.

After regaining the Ashes in 2017-18, Australia has now retained them in five subsequent series. This will mean they will have held the urn for more than nine years when the next series is played in England in 2027.

The total attendance of 223,638 was the biggest ever for an Adelaide Oval Test beating the previous record of 199,147 in 2017-18. It was also the largest Test match attendance ever in Australia outside of a Test held at the MCG.

The Day 1 crowd of 56,298 was the highest for any single day of cricket in Adelaide. Audiences across Kayo Sports, Foxtel, Seven and 7plus Sport were at their greatest as Australia closed in on victory on Day 5, with an interim average audience of 2.11m watching the action.

The final session of Day 5 was the sixth session of the series to average more than two million viewers and the eleventh session of Test cricket to average more than two million viewers in 2025. Cricket Australia’s digital channels continue to see extraordinary engagement, with 1.34 million people from within Australia visiting cricket.com.au and the Cricket Australia Live app across the Adelaide Test.

Those users contributed 11.6 million sessions, up 25% on the third Test of last year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Fans flocked to cricket.com.au and the Cricket Australia Live app for rich video content, with views from Australian users up 151% compared with last year’s third Test against India.

The vast global reach of the series was also evident with 232 million video views across Cricket Australia’s social media channels during the Test match.

“To retain the Ashes in just eleven days is an amazing accomplishment and testament to the superb preparation and performance of the players, coaches and selectors and the efforts of all those across Australian Cricket supporting the team. As always, the atmosphere at for the NRMA Insurance Adelaide Test was brilliant with the record crowds providing a fitting stage for the Ashes retention and this was reflected in the huge viewing audiences,” Todd Greenberg, Cricket Australia CEO said.

“We’re particularly delighted with amazing support of the South Australian Government who have embraced the Christmas Test theme and added a new dimension to what was already a bucket list fixture on the global cricket calendar,” he added.

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