The first day
I picked up a copy of the Australian at breakfast and read an excellent article by Gideon Haig on the 1977 centenary Test of the Ashes.
The Aussies won that one though Derek Randall put up a decent fight with 174. He reprised the event well. At the celebration dinner were Don Bradman, Harold Larwood and even Frank Woolley. He also went on to identify the differences between cricket then and now. Then there was no security, Gary Cosier walked to the ground and was let in by a gateman.
Seismic changes were about to take place as Kerry Packer was about to launch his new brand of cricket and his agent Austin Richardson was a frequent figure in both dressing rooms, handing out cheques and recruiting players.
The article which sadly I cannot share with you as you need a sub, was a fine appetitiser as I made my way to the MCG.
I was last there 10 years ago on the Flintoff tour. The wonderful statues outside were still there but much had changed. It’s now a four level stadium very much in the modern mould.
Bay 13 – the popular end – may still be there but much sanitised. It holds 90,000, over that for the Grand Final between Richmond and Giants.
We were on level 2 which afforded protection from the sun till 5.00 pm. Melbourne is said to have all 4 seasons in one day but yesterday it was just brutally hot and today will be even hotter.
Readers will know the scorecard of an attritional day so I will confine myself to a few comments. In the great Rust debate I felt a distinct frisson that I was there as the anthems were sung.
Yet here were a couple of encounters which I did not enjoy.
The first came when, rather than discomfort fans next to me in mid-over, I waited at the head of the gangway in front the glass wall of the bar for the end of the over. I was informed, not by a steward but person siting there, that I was blocking the view from the bar. If the person chose to have a drink and abandon their seat that is their problem.
Later in the bar itself I fancied half a lager. I went the station I visited few hours before as I had found the bar staff helpful. I was informed by a lady drinker “You need to queue love.” Not seeing any queue whatsoever I asked her where the queue was – “Over there” she pointed.
I asked the fat-arsed busybody to be more specific and walked in the direction pointed, passing a cash register with no one waiting and duly ordered my lager. The server there said there’s no queue so I returned with my drink to my position to glower.
Now all of this – whilst irritating to me – is I suspect of less interest to our reader. Yet as my annoyance melted away another thought struck me. In bars there are flash-points which, given the level of alcohol consumed, can lead to unpleasant encounters. Not observing a queue is one, looking at some else’s lady is another, and showcasing your male virility is a third.
Given that the need to be restrained is under attack by alcohol consumed you are in potentially dangerous situation, why then did Ben Stokes find himself at a bar at 2-00am, Jonny Bairstow visit another after he had just arrived after a long flight and Ben Duckett go to a third after a curfew had first been imposed and then released?
