I was at the SCG yesterday. Slogfest is not so much how I
would describe Australia’s batting performance as how I would describe the
experience of spending a day at the cricket: it’s festive but it’s also a bit
of a slog. I go pretty well in the first session, fresh with the beauty of the
ground and the fun of a day out, sunscreen newly applied and up to the job.
Lunch provides the perk of egg sandwiches, but also brings out the cryptic
crossword as an admission of my flagging attention span.
Somewhere between lunch and tea the sun crept up and over the edge of our bay, prompting a retreat to higher ground. We were not the only ones, it was like a Johnny Cashsong as we saw people in front of us move to the already abandoned row behind them, then realise pretty quickly that one row wouldn’t cut it. They’d turn and scan the upper echelons of the bay behind them, alas already full with the wiser and quicker. We found three seats together at the front of the bay behind, then realised they were vacant because a handrail almost perfectly blocked out the sight of pitch from the seated position, as if to protect its identity. We end up moving to the next stand.
By the third session I was in such a fog of heat and fatigue that it took me a few minutes to realise that the digital stream of Grandstand from my iphone was about three balls behind the live action. For a brief moment I wondered if the Grandstand stream was ahead.
Somewhere between lunch and tea the sun crept up and over the edge of our bay, prompting a retreat to higher ground. We were not the only ones, it was like a Johnny Cashsong as we saw people in front of us move to the already abandoned row behind them, then realise pretty quickly that one row wouldn’t cut it. They’d turn and scan the upper echelons of the bay behind them, alas already full with the wiser and quicker. We found three seats together at the front of the bay behind, then realised they were vacant because a handrail almost perfectly blocked out the sight of pitch from the seated position, as if to protect its identity. We end up moving to the next stand.
By the third session I was in such a fog of heat and fatigue that it took me a few minutes to realise that the digital stream of Grandstand from my iphone was about three balls behind the live action. For a brief moment I wondered if the Grandstand stream was ahead.
This brings me to a philosophical statement made by a little
girl behind us during the first session, chatting with (I presume) her Dad: “It’s
not live if you’re wearing sunglasses.” This actually slots in to a couple of
philosophical debates, one in the history and philosophy of science and another
at the more romantic end of phenomenology. If you’d like to learn more about
either those, you can send a self-addressed stamped email to
bastyblog at gmail.com Certainly a lot of people claim it’s cheating to listen to
the radio commentary when watching the game at the ground.
Re: Grandstand, if there’s a young man using the words
“conversely”, “emotive” and “counter-intuitive” on the radio, that young man is
Ed Cowan. It’s a bit of dirty talk for the SCG members. I’m no one to talk, but
then I ain’t the one talking. For the record I don’t mind a bit of
counter-intuition but I don’t think I’d say conversely out loud and “emotive”
makes me cringe.
Favourite ground moment was a group of policemen who were
making their way around the boundary rope single file and who’d all stop and
crouch down when the ball was bowled. The problem was that Ashwin was bowling,
you could tell they were expecting more time to make headway between balls and
were taken by surprise when it came so soon, so the crouching started getting
tardy and ragged.
Long story short, I was a mess by the end of the day. It's fun, and it's hard work.
BBL04
I’ve been dipping in and out of the BBL, I make no claim to
originality with my favourite moments there: the Maxwell leave, George “f**k
me” Bailey and DJ Sammy cheering same George Bailey from the non-striker end
when Bailey went off with the bat to make the required 210. What I loved about
the Maxwell leave was the look he gave back to the bowler: “You mean we’ve
started? That wasn’t a practice ball?”
Now Maxwell has his beard again I've decided he looks like one of those convicts who would escape with another convict so they could eat him down the track. And I've decided Nathan Rimmington is the convict who gets eaten.
Now Maxwell has his beard again I've decided he looks like one of those convicts who would escape with another convict so they could eat him down the track. And I've decided Nathan Rimmington is the convict who gets eaten.
