Fuck The Melbourne Cup, This Actually Stops The Nation

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Australia will fall into a familiar and instinctive silence today as the first ball of the Test summer is delivered in Perth. For all the talk that the Melbourne Cup "stops the nation", it has become clear that the race barely stops an office. The first ball of cricket is the moment that actually cuts through. It is the moment that makes Australian blood run hot.

The Cup brings a temporary halt to a few HR-managed sweepstakes and forces middle managers in novelty ties to stand around a TV for three minutes. The first ball, by contrast, is treated as a national obligation. It is the one broadcast that Australians across the world make a point of catching live even if it requires effort, inconvenience or diplomacy with local publicans.

In Akureyri on Iceland's rugged north coast, a lone traveller will thank a confused bartender for finding the one channel on the satellite package that carried cricket at one in the morning. In Chiang Mai, a backpacker takes control of a hostel television and asked a room full of irritated Europeans to give him "just one ball". In Tokyo, an Australian office worker streamed the coverage on his phone while pretending to compare the sugar content of vending machine canned coffees. In Copenhagen, a couple spent nearly half an hour trying to persuade their VPN to convince Kayo they were not in Denmark. In Kampala, an expat teacher spent a week's worth of mobile data watching the bowler reach the top of his mark. In Manaus, a man wipes the drops of sweat off his phone screen in the Amazonian heat as though he had witnessed a World Cup penalty shootout.

At home, the pattern was the same. In pubs from Betoota Heights to the French Quarter, patrons urged publicans to change the channel immediately. Schools took early recess. Tradies turned off radios and stood in silence. Office workers paused mid-email. Even public servants abandoned their usual practice of doing nothing so they could focus on something.

Cricket Australia confirmed that national streaming numbers spiked at the precise moment the bowler began his run-up. It remains one of the only events that can synchronise attention across such a wide range of postcodes and professions.

The Melbourne Cup may still have admirers. It may still produce long lunches and expensive hats and a temporary drop in productivity. But it does not stop the nation. It stops a room. The first ball stops Australia and every Australian scattered across the globe who still feels something stir the moment leather meets willow for the first time each summer.

More to come.