Thursday 1st July 2004 - Day 291/366 - Darwin, Northern Territory.

Anyone for Cricket

I'm off to see the cricket the wonderful cricket of Oz. 1st day of the test match against Sri Lanka.

I was confronted today by one of THOSE cricket fans. You know the ones who carry their flight bag, with scorecard and a different coloured pen for each player, a thermos flask, egg sandwiches neatly wrapped in silver foil. They talk to you like they know you them and as if you'd care about how many of the minor county grounds they've visited and the best bowling return they've ever seen. I imagine they live at home (even their parents are tired of them) and walk around all day in a pinny and pink marigolds because it excites them. They are very much like train spotters or the fellas I see on the Non league football circuit. In the trade we call them badgers. I've often wondered if I will turn into one of these people. It's fair to say I have a sizeable program collection and I went through a stage of collecting badges (i got to about 4), but surely not. Anyway I find marigolds irritate my skin.

Back to the cricket. The day saw an untypical Australian display. Having lost the toss the were put into bat. They made slow progress and continued to lose wickets. The Sri Lankan bowler Malinga (the slinger) was on debut and conceded a few runs early on, but came back well with a firey spell to take 2 of the wickets. Oz are never out of it and still grafted away eventually scoring 207 all out. without Murali that was a good effort. Vaas ended with 5 for 31 and Glenn McGrath got another Golden Duck. Warney is worshipped over here, but was run out on 2, he was very slow out of the blocks. Too much good hampshire living I say and only bowled one over at the end of the day's play. Sri Lanka had a wobble in the evening and ended at 40 for 3.