There's nothing quite like having contacts when it comes to sporting events. Given my family's long-standing ties to Australian cricket, coming to Melbourne over Christmas meant only one thing - getting into the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the annual Boxing Day Test Match. The MCG, or "the G" as it's known over here, is one of the most colossal sporting stadia on the planet - with an all-seated capacity of over 100,000, it is not just the largest cricket ground in the world, but the largest stadium of any kind in the whole Southern Hemisphere. To put it in some perspective, the cumulative capacity of both of London's international cricket grounds - Lord's and The Oval - is still less than half of that of the G. It is massive.
Anyway, getting tickets proved to be not much of a problem thanks to the business contacts of one of my cousins, who came home one day with a packet containing a wodge of MCG tickets for 4 of the 5 days of the Test - free of charge, no questions asked, and in the members' enclosure to boot. Perfect.
Going to the G on Boxing Day is as traditional to Melbornians as eating Christmas leftovers is in England - although for many the cricket is a sideshow to the real business of hitting the beers. I met up with a whole load of "Nungers" (from the cricket club) so we had a good little crowd, and phonecalls about where to meet were wholly unnecessary - these guys had met at the same spot every year going back to the 1980s! Unlike any ground I've been to in England, the G has designated standing areas alongside the gangways that run through the middle of the stands, so groups of people can stand in the middle of the crowd without having a seat, but equally without blocking anyone (as the seats behind are elevated) - our meeting point was one such area, right behind the bowler's arm.
This year's Boxing Day opposition were Pakistan, but a lot of us were disappointed that we weren't watching the West Indies who concluded their three Test series against the Aussies before Christmas and, despite eventually going down 2-0 in the series, provided some terrific excitement through various bouts of antagonism, some colossal batting from Chris Gayle, and most of all the aggression and speed of Kemar Roach, who made Aussie skipper and arguably best batsman of his generation Ricky Ponting look like a rabbit in headlights as he nailed him in the elbow and the chest in successive balls, eventually forcing him to retire hurt.* The whole thing was brewing nicely - off-the-field slagging matches in the media combined with on-the-field ones all added up to a spicy encounter... but sadly it was all over.
All in all, the first day wasn't the most fascinating of cricket matches - the Pakistanis bowling wasn't great, and the Australian batting wasn't particularly exciting. However, it did see Shane Watson choke yet again on the verge of his maiden Test century - after previously failing on a whole host of occasions to convert 50s to tons. Boxing Day's tragedy was probably the worst of the bunch - run out on 93 thanks to some dodgy calling by Simon Katich... who clearly felt bad about it so went and smacked the ball straight to point on 98. Unbelievable scenes.
I was back at the G again on Tuesday for the 4th day to see Watson finally get his century, but only after getting dropped on 99 - and I caught the very moment in photo above! It was an easy catch straight to point - just like Katich's in the first innings - but the muppet fielder managed to put it down... much to the chagrin of a large portion of the MCG crowd (after his histrionics against the Windies, Watson is not the most popular player in Australian history). However, in the intervening days we took advantage of the long-weekend public holidays to do a bit of sightseeing - Sunday saw a trip up into the Dandenong Ranges National Park was some spectacular lookouts back over Melbourne and away into the forest, while Monday featured a day trip down to Phillip Island.
The island is about 150km from Melbourne, accessible by a road bridge, and is home to beautiful beaches, a koala reserve full of koalas (see right), a seal island with a few thousand seals and, most famously, the Penguin Parade. The "Little Penguin" is one of 7 species of penguin in the world and the only one native to Australia (I think); as the name suggests they're tiny - just one foot tall and 1kg in weight when fully grown. Every night after the sun has set, after spending a few days fishing out at sea, several few hundred of the guys will swim up to this particular beach in the south-west corner of Phillip Island and, under the protection of darkness, emerge from the water on two legs and march across the sand en masse. Sitting in the public stands watching it, you appreciate why they move as a group - the walk up across the sand involves battling with raucous seagulls, so the little penguins group themselves much like a Spartan phalanx and plough through the middle of the assembled gaggle of gulls. Their destination is a huge network of penguin burrows in the grassy hills behind the each - each of the hundreds of penguins has their own burrow, and not only do they each know exactly which one is theirs, they equally remember the necessary route around the complex system of little penguin paths to navigate their way back home to their awaiting young. You can watch all the above ensue from the system of elevated boardwalks above the burrows, but as photography isn't allowed (as the flash blinds the penguins), the best thing I can offer is jacked from Google Images:
I'm off to Sydney tomorrow (30th) for some big-style New Year celebrations... which means blogging could well hit a wall for a while. Stay tuned...
* This is the same Kemar Roach who, back in April 2006, lined up for Foundation School in Barbados against the might of our Judd School touring side, and cleaned up half our batting lineup. However, he couldn't stop two half centuries, and I have no doubt that somewhere in England right now a certain J.J. Nimmo is telling one and all how he has succeeded where Ponting and his 11,000 Test runs failed...
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