When Australian umpire Darrell Hair lit the fuse on the 1995 Boxing Day Test, no-balling Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for chucking, it inflamed cricketing tensions between the two nations.
Seventeen years later, it's a heat which has never quite gone out.
This Boxing Day will be the first time Sri Lanka has played a Test match at the MCG since that incident on an explosive tour.
All-rounder Angelo Mathews remembers little of that match as an eight-year-old watching on television.
But he is well aware of the crowd, passion and aura awaiting his team at the MCG when the Test starts on Wednesday - and believes Sri Lanka can rise to the occasion.
"We've earned it (playing at the MCG). We've played some really good cricket in the recent past," Mathews said.
"Test, one-day, you name it. We've earned our spot playing at the MCG. It's an honour and pleasure playing at the MCG."It's a very special game for us."
In the 1995 Test, Muralitharan was just 22 matches into a career that would eventually see him become Test cricket's leading wicket-taker.
Muralitharan had bowled two previous overs that day, under New Zealand umpire Steve Dunne, without being called.
Once introduced at Hair's end, things changed.
The Australian called Muralitharan for throwing seven times over the course of four overs.
Sri Lankan officials were furious with the decisions - coming after the team had faced allegations of ball tampering in the previous Test at the WACA Ground.
Hair was backed by the International Cricket Council and Australian officials.
After the Boxing Day Test, Muralitharan's action was tested at the University of Western Australia.
He was cleared by the ICC until controversy in the mid-2000s with a new delivery - the doosra.
That led to a rule change allowing bowlers to extend their arm 15 degrees meaning Muralitharan could keep using the delivery and eventually take his 800th wicket before his Test retirement in 2010.
But Australia's cricket relationship with Sri Lanka has been strained ever since that 1995-96 tour - the Boxing Day Test just one of several flashpoints.
Muralitharan was called for throwing in a one-day international on the same tour by another Australian umpire, Ross Emerson.
And as well as the chucking and ball tampering incidents, Australia refused Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga a runner in a final of the one-day tournament.
Wicketkeeper Ian Healy famously told Ranatunga: "You don't get a runner for being an overweight, unfit, fat c---".
Months later, Australia refused to play 1996 World Cup games in Colombo after a bomb blast in the city, while Emerson again called Muralitharan for chucking during a 1999 one-day international in Adelaide.
Ranatunga engaged in running battles with Australia's best cricketers for a decade - the Sri Lankan skipper one of few ever able to get under the skin of Shane Warne and company.
Muralitharan's doosra controversy even led to then-Prime Minister John Howard weighing in, agreeing with accusations the Sri Lankan was a chucker.
Yet if Muralitharan had any reservations about Melbourne, they have been put aside.
He made his peace with the city during the tsunami relief charity match at the MCG in early 2005, which raised money for Sri Lanka's affected areas.
And he is in Melbourne while the current Test in being played, starring for the Renegades in the domestic Twenty20 competition.
Muralitharan's name is linked with Warne's on the trophy to be won in a Test series Australia leads 1-0 and may be decided by the end of the five days at the MCG.
Already there has been an eerie echo of the 1995 tour, with Sri Lanka's unofficial complaint of ball-tampering against Australian paceman Peter Siddle in the first Test in Hobart.
Soon after, he was cleared.
But it was yet another spark around the powder keg.
The Sri Lankans have never won a Test in Australia, losing nine of the 11 they've played here.
If they could break the drought at a venue which holds an infamous place in Sri Lanka's cricket history, it would ignite both the series and a rivalry which has never been short on fireworks.
Source: http://tvnz.co.nz
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