So the ashley12 trip report from the second day of the third test at the WACA.
LOL #1 was with the tickets. A friend of mine was put in charge of getting tickets together for the day, and the general consensus was to get wickets on one of the two grassy banks that are on the side boundaries of the oval. When he ordered the tickets, one of the grass banks had "limited" alcohol areas, so he decided to sit on the other one. Turns out that the other section was a complete alcohol free zone, so that was a decent bit of fail from us.
So after 15 minutes of sitting down and not drinking, we decided to get alcohol, and found that there were a number of free seats in block 10, around 6 rows back. So we decided to sit their instead, and got to watch the first session comeback knocking over most of the English top order. This is when LOL #2 came in.
Cricket Australia were selling a number of mini radio headsets so that you could listen to the commentary from Channel 9 TV and ABC radio for $20. I decided what the hell and bought one. Turns out that Vodafone were giving away almost identical small headsets for free for Vodafone customers. All good, since Im not with Vodafone anyway, but it also happened for another company that they have merged with, which is 3, which I am with, and could have got the headset for free. So LOL #2.
At lunch, which consisted of a dodgy overpriced midstrength beer and a dodgy overpriced roast beef roll, I ended up sitting in the Prindiville stand, where there were apperently extra seats where a friend of my friend hadnt showed for the day. Being almost directly behind the bowlers arm for the majority of Johnson's onslaught was rather great fun. I also got deep into conversation with a few Englishmen about all things Perth, football, cricket and it was nice to be able to have a chat with having someone threaten to take it outside, which is what one group of Poms had asked me when my mate cared to point out that Pieterson hadnt made many runs and it was the Englishman in him coming out over his South African heritage.
So tea, more dodgy beer, and later in the day my friends in the Prindiville stand had to leave for work/other things (LOL #3), so I decided to back down in block 10, which was rather close to where the Barmy Army was sitting. For the most part, the barmy Army was a decent laugh, but there were a few peanuts involved, and a few people missing a few brain cells. This shirt I saw on a few people made me laugh though.
After tea two new people sat down two rows across from me and proceeded to give a barrage of abuse to Pieterson, Tremlett and anyone else that was fielding within the vicinity. It wasnt clever and witty remarks, or even something like "Pieterson old chap, I dare say you didn't make many runs today hm yes..." but a barrage of drunken slurring and swearing. It was the sour point of the day that people like this, who ruin a pretty good day out for most, are still allowed to even walk the planet, let alone step foot inside a cricket ground off a leash.
LOL #4 was remembering that I dad an indoor soccer game afterwards, and during the last session made a number of msg's looking for players. Playing 5 a side, we ended up with a grand total of 3, and recruited someone from the rec centre we were playing with, not unlike England's 12th man in 2005
. We actually ended up playing against a team with a few English guys in it, and they had 4 subs and actually had fans. We went ahead 7-3 at half time, lost the fill-in to injury for the first 5 minutes of the second half, scored two goals anyway to make it 9-3 with 2 outfield players vs 4, before our fill-in played in goals and literally couldnt move. In hindsight we probably should have played with 3 since he was terrible in goals relative to me, and we ended up conceding 6 goals in the last 10 minutes to draw 9-9 with effectively 2 players since I couldnt run partly due to sunburn and partly due to my body shape being more Mark Cosgrove then Michael Clarke.
Overall, day was great and the English I would say made up about 35% of the crowd, and about 80% of the noise. Im probably going to be at the ODI on the 6th Febuary as well so if anyone here is going to that then say hello.
Also, I went today and actually sat right behind where the hotspot system works. Its basically just two guys and a smalll little laptop displaying the feed from the camera, and IMO I thought it would have been a bit more then that. Ticket wasnt worth what I paid a mate for it for only 45 minutes of action lol.
So bring on Melbourne. Since there is almost always a result in Sydney due to the pitch always falling apart in the last few days, avoiding defeat is almost the same as winning. Obviously we want to win the Melbourne test and then hopefully make 1200 in the first innings in Sydney to get the Ashes back, but at least we havent been swept before Christmas unlike your lot last year