Sunday, November 26, 2006

The Gabba Day 3 - Saturday

It was so much easier to get to the Gabba today without work and school traffic to contend with. We had great shady low level seats at third man, so we could see all the pre match interviews taking place and we were close enough to see the shine on the players faces as they trotted out onto the field with England 53 for 3 at start of play.

We were soon on the edge of our seats though when Peterson was dropped at 12 by bowler Clark. A short while later he was out lbw. A bad call by the Umpires. Unlucky for him, unlucky for England. Freddie came in and went out for a duck, he can't do it all. We slump back in our seats to watch the rapid disintegration. Highlights of which were:

- Jones swept to square leg and poleaxed Umpire Billy Bowden. The crowd were very sympathetic and when he eventually was able to get to his feet he got a standing ovation.

- Ponting dropped Giles.

- Bell's 50 runs were his 35th half century, 8th in Test Marches. He's come on since last year when his average was 17. Since then he has got 3 consecutive 100s against Pakistan and his average is now 47.66.

- McGrath's 5 wickets at 9 - 154. This was his 10th five wicket haul v England and 29th 5 wickets in all Tests.

- They played Rolf Harris Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport during the Interval between the Innings.

- Lively 5 minutes as police tried to aprehend life sized blow up doll being tossed around by the crowd. Suggestions that she be given to Warnie went unheeded!

- Hayden was run out from throw by Anderson - 3rd Umpire was needed. The decision took ages and we were sure the batsman would be given the benefit of the doubt. The final decision didn't really affect the game but Hayden's pink handled bat signified he is a Bosom Buddy and is raising money for Breast Cancer Research. $1 a run. Pink topped water bottles are part of the same scheme.

- Ponting didn't make England follow on. There were several theories running for this; he needed to give his old bowlers a rest! McGrath's hip was troubling him! Favourite though was that the Aussie players get a bonus, a share of the gate receipts, from Cricket Australia so it is in their interests for the game to carry onto 4th Day and maybe 5th. Another attendance record was set today with 170,332 spectators over 3 days, the biggest 3 day crowd since the 30's Bodyline Series.

- 9,000 Test runs for Ricky Ponting was reached in the 2nd Innings at 4.13pm when they were 91 -1. [Note Queensland are out of step with the rest of Australia in having a daylight saving of an hour. So it was 5.13pm in NSW when Ponting reached his 9,000]

We catch a free bus back into town that rockets down the busway.

We had a post match highlight when we met Dan and Mary-Jane, whose house we had stayed in at Noosa. They were lovely, she is originally from New Zealand and was a public servant in Brisbane, currently taking a sabbatical, and Dan is a consultant with an interest in National Parks and has worked closely with indigenous groups. We look forward to meeting up with them again when they visit UK.

I'm dipping out of going today (Sunday) so Keith has gone on his own as his brother didn't want to (What! I hear you cry and he's an Australian!!) I need enough energy for a bop at Elton John's Concert tonight. He's a keen cricket fan and according to the Telegraph he was due to see some of the Test action before his concert although we haven't seen him yet, maybe he was one of the many Monty lookalikes yesterday?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was just starting to feel sorry for you with the cricket carry on, but then to learn yo are going to see the maestro in concert. Elton is possibly the coolest musician who ever lived (in my humble opinion!) Enjoy! x

axx said...

What are you doing up at this time of night! Perhaps I'm not working the time difference out properly! Oh yes, its Sunday!
Really looking forward to Elton, it's bizarre coming all this way and seeing him here never having seen him back home!
I'm off for a spot of shopping shortly :-)

Anonymous said...

Oh you're having a tough time of it aren't you? You poor thing! Yes - i was late - slightly sore head this morning!!!

axx said...

Elton was awesome. Bloody amazing actually. He was on stage for over 2.5 hours and his hits just kept coming at us and he did some numbers from his new album - Captain and the Kid or something like that.

His Rocket Man was truly inspirational ..........