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| Sri Lanka vs Australia - Porcupine (16/01/2003 8:05:25 AM) |
A one day match that Ninja somehow manages to get tickets in what he thinks is possibly the best spot at the Gabba. Neither of us has been to a one day match before, so we didn't know of the vastly different qualities of the seating arrangements and their environment.
Australia vs Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka have been hitting big so we were hoping for a spectacular display of batting. The most uber of wicket keepers, Gilchrist, decided to take a holiday or something, so the Queenslander, Maher, could have a go at the keeping. Fatty Warne was off boffing a nurse or something, so this Hogg guy managed to get a game, and looking at his record, we really wondered why ... who is he sleeping with? McDermott managed to get out of his death bed and was wheel chaired to the ground.
I was only going to turn up for the evening session, but Ninja was indignant that I would miss any of the match so I managed to flex off the afternoon. They could hardly say no as I have sixty squillion flex hours up and have been working like a maniac recently. Heart attack any day now I guess. So I turn up a little before hand, the traffic was very very bad around the stadium. Fortunately I have an Aunt & Uncle who live really close by and managed to sneak my car in their yard instead of having to pay some extortionate parking fee somewhere. I made my way to the ground, being very familiar with the seats as they are quite close to where I have season tickets to the Brisbane Lions (ya!). I paid the stadium standard price (triple real world) for drink and chiko roll, then made my way to the seats. 10 mins to start and I was the only one of our party there. Two overs into the game, and Ninja decides to turn up. Fine. I had the happy banter of young yobbos behind me to keep me entertained. That and watching the toss, and my New Scientist magazine which I only read an article or two before the cricketers made their way onto the field.
We were sitting smack in the middle of the licensed area, three levels up, right on the front row, practically lined up with the middle of the pitch, awesome view, but the sun was slowly going down and the shade was leaving. This was going to be a warm one until the evening. Luckily I brought sunscreen in my bag. My bag also had a pocket knife, glass bottle and umbrella in it: all contraband here. The guards would have branded me a terrorist and had me summarily shot if they had found this stuff. Fortunately I have the face of an angel, and I just walked through the menacing horde of guards. Well, as menacing as 60kg skinny ass punk kids can look in candy coloured uniforms.
When I realised it was the licensed area, I began think about the amount of beer that would be consumed, and how dehydrated I would be getting with the sun on me, and how I wanted to drink more than I usually would (softdrink for those people who don't know me). This was kinda OK for me, but for the beer people ... 8 hours of cricket and drinking might be cause for some amusing behaviour. This hypothesis was to test ever so true.
Ninja and Rob turn up with four beers. I thought there were more people coming to share these beers but no, these two guys didn't want to get up so often. They bought them in sets of four, which the bartenders kindly supplied a kind of egg carton cup holder that really seems to fly quite well and not hurt people when they are hit by them. Of course, being the Gabba, you are ripped off with the cost of beer too.
Matthew Hayden is a Queenslander batsman who is quite popular. Especially with the yobbos behind me. When Matty came to field in front of our stand the chant from these guys was "Hayden! Give us a wave!" over and over until Matty did the wave and the cheer from the stand was huge!
Apparently some girls think that the cricket is a good place to pick up guys. I had a reasonable look around at the people about where I was sitting ... and felt good about myself :) Had to wonder what the criteria for these girls is? Male? Drunk? Likes watching cricket at times? The girls down a couple levels had a sign with something on the front which we couldn't see, but on the back was "Call me on ..." followed by a mobile phone number. Subtle. There were plenty of girls in bikinis soaking up the sun. In fact there was one particular pink bikini wearer one level down that caught the eye of the yobbos behind me, who were moderately drunk by now. After the fighting over their binoculars died out, they started chanting "Pinky! Give us a wave!" and were eventually rewarded with the wave after a 10th chorus. Then began the semaphore messaging, which was to try and get her mobile phone number, or give theirs to her. After 5 minutes of these antics I suggest writing the number down and just going over there and giving it to her. I'm such a practical person. They had no pen, but of course that was another implement I smuggled inside my trusty bag. A chip carton was sacrificed, the number was written and delivered. After that I didn't care.
Beach balls were all over the place being bumped around by the crowd. If they went on the playing area then a member of the police or a security guard would wander over and deflate it, accompanied by much booing and often some projectile food. The place where the poor policeman was sitting was covered in food bits. There was a tubby trainer who was talking to the cop, the yobbos behind us thought that it might be Warne, but then they surmised that the doughnuts on the ground would be gone in a flash if it really was Shane.
It seemed that Rob's main aim in life was to encourage the people below to hit beach balls up to our third level. He was really into it, letting out some most loud and wonderful descriptions about the skills of the people who failed to bat the ball up. This persisted throughout the night. Of course, there were two balls that buzzed by Robs head over the edge that he should have batted back if he was paying attention.
There was a kid sitting in our row a few seats away from us, who accidently hit a ball down. The booing he got was very loud followed by a hail of plastic cups and bottles, and a rain of beer. He took it in good humour, but unfortunately he was sitting right at the front like us. The people on the level below were getting hailed by these containers and beer. So they started throwing things back up. Unfortunately their aim was not so good, and my dodging skills had to come into play.
Rob decided to have a go at the policeman who had been popping his much coveted beach balls. He did a subtle rubber neck check for police who might be looking at him, then lobbed a doughnut which was a near miss on our friend in blue three levels below. He didn't even move. I've decided I don't know Rob.
There were two empty seats next to me, which were suddenly filled by two girls. Ninja smirking at me but I am ... not on the market just now (just friends!). They disappeared after about half hour or so to be replaced by more drunk yobbos.
The sun was really beating down and the sweat was flowing pretty freely. Drunken sweaty yobbos abounded. Ninja neglected to put sunscreen on his chest and consequently now has a very bright red V below his neck which looked freaking painful the next morning.
Half time and we waded out of the sun for a bit, as did everyone else. There was much beer being consumed. Then we were back again. The sun was nearly down and things were thankfully cooling.
Sri Lanka's turn in the field. Seems the favourite guy to pick on is Muralitharan, who has been accused of chucking. Something about his wrist action that just causes the illusion of throwing (chucking). When he first came to bowl, everyone in the crowd was calling "No Ball!!!". At one stage the captain sent him to field right in front of our stand. The licensed for excessive alcohol consumption stand. The chant "Chucker!!!" went up. Muralitharan played up to the crowd too, he kept trying to egg us on, at one point kicking some of the food off the field just a little too hard and almost into the crowd. He was really taking it with quite a good humour. But then the Sri Lankan captain decided that we might be making Mural feel a little bad, and moved him to the inner field. Unfortunately, when running towards us to prevent a four, Mural tore a muscle or something, and some of the crowd was a little less than impressed and jeered at him - not really good. Later, Mural complained about it, saying he didn't really like playing with that sort of crowd about.
The mexican wave got to be actually quite a wet experience later into the evening, with not so empty cups of beer flying regularly, and LOTS of empties. Fortunately the yobbos behind us had a large flag they used in the wave which I grabbed as it flew out and used it as a cover!
A guy was dressed in a costume like the phantom, except it is green and gold, with a gold cape. He wasn't happy about something, and the police were trying to make him be not happy somewhere else. Unfortunately for the police, he didn't want to go. And he must have been one strong bastard, coz it took eight police to move him. The crowd were throwing cups, beer filled and not, at the police. The old favourite song "Coppers are wankers!" started up. Ninja, who is a cop, didn't join in. I told him I'd teach him the words coz it was pretty easy, but he declined. He wasn't a very happy camper from that point. He blames the beer shower he got from the wobbly yobbo behind him, as well as a very fragrant bottom burp from the same yobbo, but I think it was the song. There were a number of other extractions and brawls broken up by the police at various points through out the evening with the same happy song being sung. Our stand had lots and lots of police in and around it. The other stands didn't seem to have any. How strange.
The yobbos behind us were pretty much blind drunk by now and were trying to do the math for the run rate required. Their subtraction skills were astoundingly pathetic, as they were slurring that Australia was gonna lose as they came up with over 6 runs required an over, when it was actually 4.3 at the time. It wasn't so much as their math skill that was funny, but the fact that the score board constantly had the required run rate written in big digits, next to the score that the yobbo was reading.
A little later there was a male streaker who made it all the way to the pitch, got kicked in the butt by the batsman. Fortunately for us, he was clothed. The police eventually caught up with him. He surrendered immediately, but they put the aggro on him anyway and had him in an wrist lock pretty quick. That's the last live match he will ever see.
But not the last one for me!
Oh! And there was also some cricket going on. I was cheering lots toward the end.
Cheers to the teams, to Muralitharan, the stupid streaker, the yobbos, the bikinis, the people who keep blowing up beach balls, the green and gold phantom, the good humoured police and to the poor people who have to clean it all up.
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Ok first things first. I DID enjoy the day. It was great to see Australia get one up (again) over the Sri Lankans. I think they are playing much better Cricket than the Poms that have brought over a bad excuse for a cricket team. My suspicions are that they made a mistake and brought over their hockey team or something like that. The game was great to watch and I think the highlight of the cricket has to be the Australian Fielding. They were literally flawless. They achieved around 5 run outs (which for all you non cricket fans is a very unusually high number) one which was a legendary direct hit. What made it even more special was that the Sri Lankan fielding was pitiful. They missed a gimme run out and at the later stages of the match gave Australia overthrows, which in international cricket is unforgivable.
The crowd was colourful and no I didn’t particularly like the Copper song however I do get verbal abuse every night shift and have done so for the last 4 years so it didn’t bother me. What did bother me though, was the hard time that people were giving the cops sitting on the oval seizing beach balls (because they are told to, and its their job) was probably what annoyed me a bit. I was tired too which never helps Ninja’s moods. The yobbo sitting behind me had long legs and at certain times throughout the game he would stick his knee into my back. After a bit I turned around and gave him one of my “Death stares” which suitably scared him so he didn’t do it again. Then about 15 minutes later when Australia finally scored a boundary after about a 9 over drought, the whole stadium except Porcupine and I stood to their feet – unfortunately at the stage it was more beer than common sense and the beer within the cylindrical receptacles that the yobbos were holding decided to jump out and land on both Richard and me. I got covered all over my right arm and shoulder. I wasn’t pleased and was considering which crushing Ninja move to incapacitate him with when he leant forward and said, “Sorry mate you want some (gesticulating with his half full beer cup)”. I said, “No thanks I think not”. He then said, “Gee tough crowd”. I was envisaging my solar plexus strikes and throat blows but then my common sense kicked in and I just ignored him.
I had a good day in all and it was very amusing to see the reaction of the crowd to the performances of the crickets and other patrons. “Pinky” seemed to take the attention of the entire row behind us and she actually got airtime when a cameraman decided to put her on the TV for a bit. When she realised that she was on TV she wiggled her best assets (no not her hair Morte) and they quickly took her off the TV I guess from the censoring from channel 9. One thing that was amusing was Porcupine, who throughout the match would gesture a shrug when he wanted to say, “Ah well” but didn’t seem to be able to articulate the words. He did it quite a lot and I suspect the “high” intellect in the rows behind us probably started seeping into his brain and clouded his normally sharp mind.
I definitely want to go again but perhaps on the other side as I wasn’t told that I would be in the sun for the entire 1st half of the game (bastard ticketec – if I see him in town he is going to share a cell with “bubba”).
Anyone who is thinking of going along to a 1 day match should give it serious thought and then just buy a ticket!! It is a great day out.
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