Sights you thought you'd never see - James Lowe wicket-keeping on Friday at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Nigel Ringland
BBC Sport at Melbourne Cricket Ground

Watch the tunnel walk at Melbourne Cricket Ground. The place is massive!

Where do we rank this in great sporting arenas?

Chris Jones
BBC rugby union correspondent at Melbourne Cricket Ground

Image source, Getty Images

Despite its name, the Melbourne Cricket Ground is not just a cricket venue.

It often hosts two or three games of Australian Rules football during the AFL season, while it has also staged State of Origin rugby league games and football matches as well as events in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

The official capacity is 100,024 and this weekend's crowd is expected to surpass the 84,000 that attended the Lions deciders against the Wallabies in Sydney in 2001 and 2013.

The MCG is the heart of Melbourne. Take a short stroll along the Yarra River from the Flinders Street station to Melbourne Par and you are hit by a stack of world-famous arenas. Towering over them all is The 'G.

While enormous in size, in keeping with the traditional boldness of Australian sport, the venue has touches of quaintness, such as the Lord's-esque Long Room and the sofas with a view of the cricket from behind the arm, where places are reserved for more venerated members.

History seeps from every angle, starting with statues of legends that surround the perimeter - with great figures from cricket and Aussie Rules immortalised - to the museum that contrasts the old with the new.

• Read more about the iconic venue staging today's second Test

Send us some photos from where you are watching the game.

Any local rugby clubs open early?

Chris Jones
BBC rugby union correspondent at Melbourne Cricket Ground

Following on from Tom's note below, it's remarkable to think Australia have turned up late for what luminaries like Tim Horan are calling the biggest game in Wallaby rugby for a decade.

It continues the theme of Australia being badly underprepared for this series.

Former Australia centre Tim Horan, who won two World Cups with the Wallabies, posts on X:, external "I reckon this is the most important rugby Test match for the Wallabies since the 2015 World Cup final. So much at stake for our game. 90,000 at the MCG."

Tom English
BBC Sport at Melbourne Cricket Ground

Joe Schmidt just walked purposefully across the pitch at the MCG there and gave Lions coach Johnny Sexton a big hug. What great history those two have with Ireland and what Schmidt would give for a fly-half of Sexton's authority and class in his Wallabies team.

Schmidt seemed in remarkably good spirits given the reports coming through that the Australia bus was 25 minutes late in getting to the MCG. What is it with Schmidt and buses? Murrayfield and Sydney when Ireland coach and now tonight.

BBC Sport's Nigel Ringland has been taking in the sights and the sounds outside Melbourne Cricket Ground in the couple of hours before the start of the second Test between the Wallabies and the Lions.

The opening Test was far from a classic, with the Lions winning 27-19 at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.

Andy Farrell's side played some scintillating rugby and led 24-5 early in the second half after Dan Sheehan's try.

They then took their foot off the gas and Australia finished strong to add some gloss to the scoreline.

If the Wallabies want to draw the series level then they must start quicker.

Image source, Getty Images

Victory in Melbourne for the British and Irish Lions will secure a first Test series win over Australia since 2013.

The Lions won the first Test last Saturday in Brisbane to set up what head coach Andy Farrell described "the biggest game of our lives".

This is big. What makes it even bigger is that it will be played in front of an expected crowd of 90,000 at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

A classic for the ages?

Image source, Getty Images