Day 52 - Familiar Faces at the Christmas Test

​The weather forecasters had promised a scorcher and they were not wrong as I awoke this morning to already balmy temperatures and clear blue skies. Given that this weather had been forecast, one might have expected me to be more organised in having located my suncream, hat etc last night, but no…. I therefore had a pretty speedy breakfast before setting off to the ground.

The TMS commentators reckon that the walk from the city centre to the ground is one of the best in world cricket, and it is hard to disagree. The city of Adelaide is full of lovely old buildings, and the walk to the ground takes you past lots of these, and then over the river to the stadium. 


First ball was at 10am, but there was a lot happening even before that - news of Steve Smith not being able to play spreading round, the giving out of Green Santa hats, the important toss (won by Australia), and then the anthems and a very moving rendition of ‘True Blue’ in respect for those affected by the events at Bondi. 


When play did start, England were bowling. Archer was bowling pretty well, but Carse was not hitting his lengths. When we got two wickets midway through the session, it was probably more than we deserved. Crawley’s catch was pretty special… but I am still shaking my head at Brook dropping Kwawaja. The Aussies were two down at lunch and it was pretty finely balanced.


At lunch, I managed to locate John Gould and John Gent (the JGs) who have flown over for this test. I’ve arranged to have dinner with them on Saturday, which will be lovely.


I was pleased that I was back at my seat in time after lunch, as Archer took two wickets in the first over and it was advantage England. By this point in the day, there were a lot of people around the ground who had been in the sun a lot, so I was also feeling quite smug that my seat was in the shade all day! I may be even more smug tomorrow…

Anyway, back to the cricket. England took pretty regular wickets in the afternoon and evening sessions. It would have been even better if there had not been an ‘operator error’ with Snicko to reprieve Carey….. Whilst I am not impressed by that, it was quite emotional when he got his century.

Australia closed at 326-8, which leaves the game very much in the balance. Not too bad a day for England.

After the close of play, I met up with Frank, a friend from both Oriel and Cranleigh and we walked into the city centre to get some dinner. It was lovely to catch up with him and our paths will undoubtedly cross again in the next couple of weeks.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1 - It Starts……..

Image
Having been thinking and talking about this adventure for months, today rather crept up on me. As well being a little hurried in actually packing a rucksack for up to three months of travel (I had been organised with packing lists, just not the actually putting things in a bag bit), I was also a bit last minute in tying up loose ends at home, mainly the boring things, like sorting out my car tax that I realised expired whilst I am away. It was therefore also a bit of a late night doing the really important things, like finishing the hardback book I had no intention of travelling with, and downloading some shows to watch onto my Chromebook. But, after a bit of last minute re-packing (Do I really need that extra T-shirt? Probably not. Where did I put that charging cable?), my rucksack was ready to go, and I had sorted everything I needed to in my flat. I am pleased to report that I have not left anything in the fridge that is likely to be gross on my return. Then off through the rain to ...
Read more

Day 2 - Touristing it up in Brussels

Image
The Eurostar journey was pretty uneventful yesterday. Despite looking out of the window, I did not see any fish 🐠 as I crossed the Channel, and I made sure I was on the look-out for small boat crossings too.....  It was early evening when I arrived in Brussels. The metro system took me a few minutes (and one journey in the wrong direction) to figure out, but Google Maps did its thing and got me to my hotel safely. The hotel is near the Royal Galleries, close to the Grand Place, and it is pretty busy around as apparently this is a big weekend with Belgian National Day tomorrow.  An evening quest for food (success) was followed by a walk through said Royal Galleries and then a test of my photography skills at the Grand Place. It is, as the name suggests, pretty Grand. Pleasingly for me, there were lots of Geocaching AdLabs around for me to use to learn some history. My visit here was then followed up with some good wandering around, with the highlight undoubtedly the Brussels D...
Read more

Day 3 - Happy Belgian National Day!

Image
Yesterday evening was fairly quiet - a stroll to see Jeanneke Pis, all in the name of gender equality.... and then an ice-cream and soaking up some of the holiday vibes.  Today, in case you did not know, is Belgium's national day. I had read a bit about some celebration events, some of which I am hoping to see this evening, but I did not know that as I walked to find some breakfast this morning, within 100m of my hotel I would stumble upon the whole Belgian royal family arriving for the Te Deum mass at the St Michael and St Gudula Cathedral. Having previously sat opposite the Swedish royal family at a concert in Stockholm when visiting with Lizzy, I am starting to appreciate European royal families turning out for my visits.... Apparently it was King Philippe, Queen Mathilde, and their four children (Elisabeth, Eleonore, Gabriel and Emmanuel) who were there. You can read all about their outfits on the Daily Fail Online, if that's your thing.  Anyway, I enjoyed the experience, ...
Read more