The Melbourne Cricket Ground, The first ODI Australia v India.

Being an avid cricket fan (much to the disgust of a lot of my friends), I had to visit the MCG at some point of time in my life, it is an amazing stadium if purely just for the vastness of the playing surface coupling with steep 3 tiered stands. 

The game itself was a good one, nothing amazingly special, some village moments from the Indians that would have been more at home at the infamous Clijah Croft. The Indian number 10 came out to bat and proceeded to put on his thigh pad out in the middle and that’s not to mention the fielding. A lot of the hype building up to the game was based around India’s T20 victory on Friday night stopping (now briefly) the rot of losses on the tour and could they build some momentum into the ODI’s. There was the talk about David Warner and the switch hit which he dispatched into the stands 108m away and was he going to do it again. Or would Tendulkar get his 100^th hundred at international level?

Matthew Wade scoring the first runs and Sachin going for the 100th Hundred.

The game itself was decided by some moments of brilliance batting from debutant Matthew Wade, and the 2 Hussey brothers who between them regularly dispatched the Indian bowlers to the fence after the rain delay. As the Indians came out to bat, chasing a decent total of 216 which wasn’t even rounded up due to the rain, Duckworth-Lewis what’s going on? Sachin Tendulkar came out to open up and he was greeted by a furore of cheering from the 20000 or so Indian fans out of the 30,000 attendance. It got me thinking about the atmosphere which was pretty amazing already even though the MCG was only at about a third of its 100,000 capacity, imagine going to a game either here or at Eden Gardens where the place is packed to the rafters with crazed fans wanting to see their idols? I think I will be coming back again as people say watching an Aussie rules game is amazing here too…