The Ashes - Fourth Test, Melbourne (the day formerly known as) Day 3: Courage, the scarred tree and sick sheep
Thoughts from a visit to the Melbourne Cricket Ground
Melbourne Fourth Test.
Stumps Day 3.
Did Not Happen (Match ended on Day 2)
It’s Sunday 28 December and it’s a cracker in Melbourne. We have a forecast top of 28 °C from a low of 15 °C and the sky overhead is a cloudless blue. The English men’s cricket team are in town for the Boxing Day Test. Months ago we purchased tickets. Texts sent, sleeping arrangements sorted.
The First Test in Perth was a stinker. The Second in Brisbane was not great under grimy subtropical floodlights. The Third in Adelaide seemed to be tremendous. The 3-0 scoreline could easily be different as we have a poor Australian team that has been lucky and a poor English team that has been unlucky. And yet, the commentariat seems to sing with one voice about Australia’s dominance.
Anyhoo. There will be no cricket today, as England defeated Australia inside two days.
Australia 152 (MG Neser 35, JC Tongue 5/45) and 132 (TM Head 46, BA Carse 4/34) defeated by
England 110 (HC Brook 41, MG Neser 4/45) and 6/178 (JG Bethall 40, Z Crawley 37)
by 4 wickets
==
(The day formerly known as) Day 3 and I’m onto my bike. I feel compelled to visit the Melbourne Cricket Ground this day. Not as a part of a planned group of six. But by myself. Just to see.
The jacaranda of the Edinburgh Gardens appear colourfully dishevelled; like Saturday night makeup in the early hours of Sunday. Flashes of limp-ish purple dazzle against foliage green and sky blue. Skateboarders go shirtless. Sunbathers sprawl on the lawn wearing dental floss -style bikinis. It is a beautiful day for the beautiful people. Flawless. The lightest of southerly breezes.
Punters shuffle along in thongs outside the Fitzroy swimming pool. An oasis of the inner suburb. On Napier Street a man and a woman work together wordlessly to wrangle a double futon base into the back of a hire van. It’s Moving Season.
As I ride along, I know that sport owes me nothing. I know that cricket owes me nothing. I bought a ticket, I hoped to go, but the game ended. That’s life. That’s sport. I know that sport owes nothing to anyone.
But I also know that people will look to blame someone for their circumstances. Groupthink currently has the cricket pitch curator to blame. But the game’s early finish is not the curator’s fault. Goodness me. Did you see those dismissals? Would any of today’s players have been selected in the 1980s or 1990s or the early 2000s? Back when application and courage were expected? No. No way.
I remember a time when playing for a draw was an option. When opening batsmen would take the shine off the ball. When the phrase “that’s the way he plays” was rarely used. I remember a time when people placed a high value on their wicket. Protecting your wicket was the most important thing you could do in a game where 20 wickets are required to win.
==
Across a near-deserted Victoria Parade, alongside the Fitzroy Gardens and down the hill to Yarra Park, I see clutches of humans in holiday attire. Some wear replica cricket shirts. Some wear replica English football shirts. All wear sunglasses, all walk as if lost.
In Yarra Park, inane music thumps from a boom box. People drift around the Melbourne Cricket Ground concourse like confetti. There is no cricket today.
Outside the Members’ entrance, people stop and take photos of the statue of SK Warne, captured forever in his delivery stride. Behind the statue, a ferris wheel stands motionless and empty.
In all my years I’ve never heard pitch grass length discussed as it was over Days 1 and 2 of the Melbourne Test. And cricket has been played here between Australia and England since 1877. (Note: Melbourne was first settled by the English colonisers in 1835. Australia was federated in 1901.)
Outside the ground. English and Australian cricket fans weave like falling leaves. Families hold hands. An ice cream truck does good business.
Australia v England is over. And I’m aware that Australia v England has been scheduled here for March 2026: a money-grabbing day-night Test match to mark the 150th anniversary of the very first Test match between the two countries, and indeed the very first Test match of all.
1st Test, Melbourne, March 15-19, 1877
Australia 245 (C Bannermann 165, A Shaw 3/51) and 104 (TP Horan 20, A Shaw 5/38)
defeated
England 196 (H Jupp 63, WE Midwinter 5/78) and 108 (J Selby 38, TK Kendall 7/55)
by 45 runs
I think of that game in 1877 and the circumstances of that game in 1877 and I think of Melbourne (Naarm) being settled by the English colonisers in 1835 and I think of the unfolding death, dispossession and craziness of the next forty years and I know that today I will visit the scarred tree of Yarra Park.
If play had continued on Day 3, then the lunch break would now be underway. Outside in Yarra Park, more groups of meandering tourists wander. Some lie in the shade. I see a man wearing an Arsenal top with BERGKAMP written across his back, apparently lost in space and time.
Many temporary structures have been built in the parklands. Structures to lure cricket fans. Structures like food stalls, cricket nets and a ferris wheel.
Today, workers hover about. The Great Dismantling is underway.
Being here today is like being at the Showgrounds a day late. I’m seeing backstage. A bloke in high-vis gathers a squad of other high-vis men around him.
“OK, look. We all know we won’t all be required tomorrow. But I need to know now - who WANTS to work tomorrow? I’ve probably got space for three of ya.”
Down the hill, I park my bike and with thoughts of the late SK Warne, step up to receive a health check. I’m ushered into a temporary structure not yet being dismantled and my body mass index is calculated, blood pressure taken and other details crunched. And an email tells me the news (blood pressure: normal, weight: elevated, body fat: normal, lifestyle index: excellent).
And that’s enough. As I ride home past the Fitzroy Gardens, more pods of men in Southampton, Chelsea, Tottenham shirts walk behind a leader, himself bent over the screen of a smart phone. I see four different groups each huddled around their leader. One man scratches his head. Another man pulls the jocks out his bum.
In Fitzroy, opposite the Napier Hotel, I’m again given cause to think about courage. Courage in all its forms. Courage to show up. Courage to keep going. Courage in the face of extraordinary hardship. Courage to put one foot in front of the other. Courage to get out of bed.
I wonder.
It’s a beautiful day. (The day formerly known as) Day 3, Melbourne. No place for sick sheep. It’s a wonderful day.
“ ‘I am suffering. Someone or other must be to blame for that’ — that’s how every sick sheep thinks.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
I loved reading this David, though I have never watched a day of cricket in my life, you wove a bit of magic here!
This thoughtful reflection (almost) makes me glad the game only went for two days. Thanks, E. regnans. So many takeaways from your writing here.