Boxing day at MCG is an experience to behold. Got there after sacrificing omlette orders that took way too long.
Settled down on the upper tier in time for the first ball. India lost the toss and were fielding. Annhiliation followed. Australia racked up 111-O at lunch inspite of a pretty hostile opening spell.
We decided to take India's fate into our own hands. Being the superstitious Indian cricket watchers that we are, we decided to change things up and made the ultimate sacrifice for the troops. We left the stadium (the real story is that we just didn't want to watch Australia chalk up 400 for too few in the day) and headed for the Great Ocean Road. The radio was on through the journey and YES we were ruing not staying back at the ground BUT maybe the wickets would not have fallen had we stayed back. This was further evidenced later.. But I'll come to that in a minute.
Great Ocean Road was a beauty. The weather was crisp. The sea was angry. And the sun was shining bright! Only hinderance was wayyyy too many flies... Never really understood that about Australia.
On the way back, Ponna had the sudden epiphany that the BMW we were in had a fucking tele in it! Pulled over and watched a bit of the game ('cause sensibly enough, the tele won't work in a moving car), including the over when Mitchell Johnson was caught at short leg but wasn't given. As soon as we turned it off, a wicket fell (hence the theory that we should not we "watching" the game... Subsequently modified to Lal and Vikas should not be sitting adjacent to each other while watching the game).
All in all, 2 fantastic sessions for India. And if the theory about winning more sessions wins you the test is true, then we're 2-1 up! But they have the runs on the board and we don't.
Anyway, we ended the day with another lovely Sri Lankan dinner at the Ponna's.
I'll hazard another fearless forecast... Another sunny day tomorrow. India will wrap up the last wicket within the first 5 overs and then lose 2 quick wickets... Jaffer and Laxman. Dravid and Sachin will steer us to safety and we'll end the day at about 280 for 6.
Probably the most critical day of the series tomorrow. If India capsize, it could be a long hard Australian summer!
1 comment:
Hey Joker. The only bad news is that your predictions were hopelessly inaccurate. Unless you're referring to some personal situation - perhaps Lal was supposed to source the tickets to the game, and did indeed do that, but from some shady tout in Janpath - for a game at MCG (Malad Caraoke Ground) - which you only realised when the darwan at the stadium kicked your asses?
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