Test Cricket

Test cricket match. Check. Done that, and probably don’t need to do it again. This past weekend, we went to see a test cricket match between the South Australia Redbacks (named after the local poisonous spider) and the New South Wales Blues. We went with Brad and Laila, the couple from California, and John, another colleague from CSIRO. We picked this particular match because it was free to the public. (You can see pictures here.)

We made plans to arrive a little early on Saturday morning to make sure we got good seats, figuring a free event would fill up reasonably early since it would be first come, first serve. Well, we got good seats alright. There were perhaps 30 other people in the entire oval (stadium) when we arrived about 25 minutes early. It was so quiet that we started to wonder whether we had the day wrong. There was active construction going on in about half of the stadium, there were birds sitting all over the cricket oval, and there was absolutely no sign of any teams. The match was supposed to start at 11:00 am, and as the time slowly drew nearer, we really began to wonder. But, right at 10:55, the teams came trotting out of the locker rooms, along with the umpires. Apparently there is no need to warm up for test cricket: with five days to play the game, you can spend a good day or two of it warming up, I suppose.

We made it through two hours of cricket, and here’s what I have to report back. I was mostly hot and sweaty in my seat, despite being in the shade. I’m not sure whether or not you’re supposed to talk or even cheer during a test match. The five of us kept a conversation going throughout the play, but I kept wondering whether we were committing a big no-no because everyone else was pretty quiet. There was very little cheering. One guy had brought along his newspaper, and I think we may have received a number of annoyed glances from those sitting near us. The main source of noise in the crowd came from a large group of young boys who had come to the match. Amazingly, one of the outfielders was giving autographs to these little guys while play continued as usual. He seemed to be keeping one eye on the batter, but I was shocked. I just tried to imagine a baseball game with the right fielder hanging out over on the sideline, signing autographs, chatting with people, and glancing at the batter every once in awhile. I guess when you have five days for a match, it doesn’t really matter all that much if you miss a ball that’s hit to you.

Test cricket is definitely not the kind of sporting event I’m familiar with, though in retrospect, one benefit of test cricket is that there is probably never a rush on the bathrooms. You can go anytime because there is next to no chance that you’ll miss anything important. I have to admit, I had a good laugh the next day when I was reading the Sunday Mail (the big Sunday paper here), and they had a feature on the cricket match we had seen. The major question on the page was, Does Test Cricket have a future in Australia? I felt slightly relieved to know we weren’t the only ones wondering this. They had interviewed a number of people at the cricket match, asking what they thought about Twenty/20 Cricket, which only takes about 3 hours to play. My favorite response was from one guy who obviously felt younger generations were not adequately appreciating Test Cricket. He said, “Twenty/20 is not cricket; it’s entertainment.”


I didn’t come away empty-handed from the cricket match, however. I learned that the best place to sit is behind the catcher or bowler. You can see the ball much better this way, and also tell what happens when the batter hits the ball. And, you often have a better view of the scoreboard, which could potentially be the most exciting part of Test Cricket. There are so many things to report on the scoreboard, and at least the one at the Adelaide Oval is still done manually. I did enjoy watching them move around the names when a batter got out (they call that a wicket here), and was preoccupied for quite some time trying to sort out what all of the things on the board actually meant. Unfortunately, I’ll have to report back on that because I’m still unclear on a number of the categories.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Twenty/20 Cricket season is just about over, but I would still be willing to try out a one day match. Although Test Cricket is not for me, I’m not ruling out the sport entirely. But, for our next sporting event, we’re going for soccer.