The Army Swelters
Day 2 of the Fifth and final Ashes Test was my first experience of cricket in Australia. Despite attending the Ashes back at home on numerous occasions there was a definite excitement about arriving via Moore Park Road and wandering around the Sydney Cricket Ground. The SCG is probably the best known and most iconic ground in the world after the home of Cricket – Lord’s. The original pavilion sits low slung between the modern stands and the mile high lighting pillars. The building has kept its original style roof with its characteristic green corrugated metal – and in front, all corralled into a special enclosure, are rows of Member’s seats. Poor buggers I thought – correct dress code [like at home] required Members to wear slightly more than was necessary on this hot day.
My web-bought-home-printed ticket [with a picture of the ‘loveable’ St. Broad on it], got me into the ground quickly. Was Broady on the ticket to wind up the Australians? Cricket fans will know the history behind that. No crowds, no jostling – quick and efficient. How do they do that with an expected 45,000? Beats me, it certainly wasn’t like the morass of people that seem to circle our Oval in the hour before a big game. And not a tout in sight.
Broady versus Smithy – you kind of guess the day’s outcome…
On the pitch the England players were playing a kind of five a-side football, surrounded by what looked like 100s of hangers on and various unidentifiable TV pundits dressed in suits. The Spider Cam was dipping across the scene like a swallow.
At 9.30 am it was hot. By play at 10 it was hotter and so I was already sitting like a schoolboy in my place. On the ticket I was in H19, block 9 which was politely described on the seating plan as the ‘England Fan Zone’. Early in the day I was already grateful for the fact that we were in the shade. An App on my phone predicted this wouldn’t last, as the sun would quickly move into the North and be overhead by lunch. Yes, North because this was south of the equator.
England’s ‘Fan Zone’ is better known as the area occupied by its ‘Barmy Army’. The core of which seemed to be a ramshackle tatterdemalion bunch of hardened cricket watchers who had clearly seen the Team on the rack in the previous Ashes games around the country. I wondered just how the (generally) forty-somethings could manage the time and the money to accomplish this. Australia is not cheap and the different grounds are hours apart by air. It was effort enough just to be there at all.
Only about 8 places away sat the man with the trumpet. The chap you see in clips on the news or in cutaways when someone’s tying a bootlace or having a drink. As the England batsmen marched out he struck up with ‘Jerusalem’ the rousing call that heralded the start of the day. The Zone joined in.
Later in the day: Group orchestrator (black hat), trumpeter and the serious singer (grey shirt) in full song as Captain Smith walks in after an early English wicket.
By the time we were once again seated we had completed ‘God Save Your Queen’, which was aimed at the Australian audience and a rendition of ‘Yellow Submarine’ with the words – ‘your next queen will be Camilla Parker Bowles, Camilla Parker Bowles…’
Somewhere over in the Brewongle stand, an entire section of the crowd all dressed as Richie Benaud [shiny silver acrylic wigs, fawn suit, reserved tie and blowup microphone], responded in song. They weren’t serious competition but our Zone diehards gave them some credit, saluting the great broadcaster and wondering what hardships they were enduring by sitting there in full sun.
Although my visits spanned two days – 2 dismal cricketing days from the England point of view, records were broken. Meterological ones, and so my headline news shifts to the extraordinary weather conditions. Sunday 7th Jan was the hottest cricketing day on record in Australia. Captain Root’s Roots weren’t deep enough and he and the side wilted. Understandable if the weather stats were anything to go by…
Day 4 was hotter than ever. The Hottest Day, and as we Ubered it to the ground the driver’s temperature gauge never wavered from 43 centigrade. The 30 minute ride was memorable for the fact that there was no one on the street. An eerie absence of people from the midday world that would normally have seen dog-walkers, joggers, skateboarders and homeward-bound night owls. Instead no-one. Heat had driven the wise to ground. Only madmen were, it seemed, destined to be out and about on this day. The car’s air conditioning struggled to keep things in check – the windows heated to cracking point, the black plastic dashboard was untouchable and when we got out it was the sort of heat shock you expect by accidentally finding yourself in front of a jet engine or heaven forbid, a locked sauna. Mid forties and black tarmac.
None but the brave – Cricket in the Forties
Sunday: England spent the first 4 hours toiling in the field – Channel 9 and Shane Warne constantly showing close ups of the official temperature, but by the tea interval we were past caring. Young women dressed in ‘Red Frog’ * T- Shirts came up and down the stands spraying you with water from backpack containers. [The pump-action sort you might later use for weed killer or patio cleaning] Expensive beer got drunk, runs flowed, the Aussies declared 300+ ahead and still the hard core of the Army chanted its songs out in the full sun. A corpulent lobster coloured man wearing a sweaty T-Shirt emblazoned with the words FAT POMMIE BASTARD passed me on the concourse. Brave, but spot on, I thought.
* Red Frog = some kind of wine gum sweet that basically had no place at a cricket match on a hot day
By the end of play it didn’t seem to have much purpose. Australian children clamoured to the perimeter fence trying to get a bit of hero Nathan Lyon who was sent to deep third man between his wicket-taking overs. Irritating, but in truth he was to become the senior wicket taker in the 5 match contest. Cook got bowled, Stoneman lost a review, Vince flashed and Malan went. 4 down and surrounded by sweaty crowing Australians. Thank goodness for stumps.
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