The S C Glee

What were the odds? Well about $7 according to the Aussie in front of me who placed a bet on it. It was a beautiful November spring day at Manuka Oval where I saw England set the scene for a summer of despair. It’s been all downhill from there but on Friday night a miracle occurred and I was there to witness it at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Thanks to a combination of factors – a Friday morning meeting in western Sydney and England’s poor form making tickets on ebay easy to come by, I made it to the one-day international between Australia and England. England made 292, a paced innings with a great century by Ed Joyce and some good hitting at the end, Dalrymple with an entertaining 30 in 18 balls. Here’s some of the action shots…

Ooh ahh Glenn McGrath (about time you retired innit?) squaring up Ian Bell.

Here is Joyce towards the end of his knock.

And the Aussies attempting to bat after the break! Gilchrist was out the very first ball of the innings and you could sense the shock reverberate around the SCG (I guess it would’ve been entertaining if he stayed in a bit longer).

By time the sun went down and the lights came on, the game was drawing to a bit of an anticlimax, England taking regular wickets, though at one stage Hayden and Symonds looked like they could reel it in, until Symonds got injured, possibly his stupid hair got in his vision and he got hurt.


Despite this, the low strength beer which was the only one available was starting to set in, the crowd were doing the Mexican Wave (despite it being banned in all cricket grounds in Australia…probably cos it’s Mexican and not true blue Aussie), and sections of the crowd were in competition to form ‘worms’ out of empty plastic beer cups. This was the one closest to me.

And pretty much that was that. The English fans dotted around the place were overjoyed…more relief than anything that they came all this way and at least saw one victory. It was all very good-natured and a fun day and night, setting up a fine weekend in Sydney.