Day 39 - Rooooooooooooooot!

​Breakfast today included a momentous moment - I had Vegemite on toast. Whilst it was not bad, it was nothing compared to Marmite. An early victory for England.

Andy, out tour leader, had said that he would leave the hotel at 11:15 to get the bus to the ground, and that we could go with him to figure out how it all works. It turns out that we really did not need that much time, as we arrived at The Gabba before the gates even opened.

Still, it was cool to see some of the players in the nets and to have a bit of a wander around the stadium. 

Even though the temperature today has not been stupidly hot, I was delighted to find that my seat was nicely in the shade. When England were 5-2, having chosen to bat, I was worried how many days I would be able to enjoy my seat for!

The morning session was engrossing. Whilst the Crawley and Root rebuild was welcome, it wasn’t without nervy moments. The edge of my seat was well employed. 

I was able to chat a bit to the people around me (my theory of yesterday that I have a below average age and number of Y chromosomes held up though!) and people were impressed that I was able to get TMS on my phone (thank you NordVPN) and therefore provide insights, such as the fact that Crawley would have been out if Australia had reviewed a caught behind.

At 98-2 at lunch/tea (I am struggling with meal nomenclature with the day/night game), it was probably England’s session, and I was able to enjoy my chicken and chips. 

The afternoon session was a good watch as England continued to go along at a fair pace. Well, it was good apart from the frustration of Crawley and Brook both getting out to… shall we just say ill—advised shots.

After tea/dinner/my ice-cream break, England slowed up a bit under the lights. I’m not convinced by day/night tests, but it was a pretty cool thing to experience. England did struggle - the Stokes run-out, followed all too quickly by others, was not ideal, and it looked as though England would be well below par.

In amongst all this though was Root’s century. I was adamant that I was going to record the historic moment of Root getting his first test century in Australia…. Which means I now have quite a lot of videos of Root on 96, 97, and 98 on my phone. It was a lovely moment when he got his century though. Cue a lot of shouts of Roooooooooot!

The over rate was horrendously slow today, and it all got a bit tactical at the end with whether England would want Australia to bat tonight or not. I approved of the ‘hit out or get out’ approach taken by Archer and Root as it led to a quickfire 60 odd runs and a much healthier looking scoreboard. 

Play ended at 9:30pm and I was able to get to the bus stop pretty quickly to get a bus back into the city centre. From there it was a walk (uphill!) back to my hotel. I am very thankful for my room being well air-conditioned and think I will now sleep well tonight.