Despite wanting to stay up to watch Chelsea, I was absolutely knackered, and went to bed around 8 o'clock. I set my alarm, but due to some iPhone bug (it wasn't just me, I checked), all alarms broke, so I wasn't woken at 12.30. Sadly Chelsea didn't win (which I found out when I eventually did wake up by watching Fox Sports News - essentially Sky Sports News but without Georgie Thompson and more features about Aussie Rules Football).
After swallowing the obvious disappointment of another 2 points dropped from the double winners, I set off to get my buses into the SCG. The first part of the trip is on the normal city buses, but there are shuttle buses from Central Station, which require a separate fare. Being clever, I decided to get all of my shuttle bus tickets for the test in one go (to avoid queues on the other days). I ask the man in the ticket kiosk for four return tickets, which confuses him. "Four tickets?" comes the reply. "Yes", I answer, "one for every day of the test". "But it's a five day test" says the Australian ticket salesman. "Not the way your boys are going!" is my reply. CricketbanterLAD! (And yes, that has been submitted to TrueLAD, awaiting laderation).
Arriving there was fine, the shuttle bus dropped us yards from the entrance. Then came the worrying bit. Because I booked my tickets late on, I was forced to use the fine websites ticketmaster and viagogo. This technically means my tickets were bought from a third-party (after someone originally bought them and decided to sell them on). Normally this wouldn't be a problem, as a ticket is a ticket, and can just be shown to someone at the door. However, for the Ashes, they are using eTickets, which is basically a print out reciept of purchase, with the original buyer's name and details emblazoned on it. Mine read MR ANDREW MADEN. On the print out is a bar code, which gets put into a scanner, and this magically only allows one entry per seat (to stop people printing off loads of copies and using them loads of times to get loads of people into the ground). I've never heard of or met Mr Maden, so I just had to hope that he hadn't done this. I was also nervous as I have no link to a Mr Andrew Maden, so if I was stopped and questioned, I would have to have some sort of reason why I was using his ticket. I'd thought up an elaborate back-story, where Mr Maden had bought me a ticket to the cricket for my Christmas present. I would then ring up "Uncle Andy" (my real dad) and tell him to play along. And cross my fingers.
So with all of this deceit and danger swirling around in my mind, my heart was beating as I folded up the print out to make a bar code, moved it slowly through the scanner and swiped it on the machine. Luckily enough, the doors opened, and I walked in, breathing a sigh of relief. Now I just need to hope that my tickets to the other days work as well. (Dad, if you're reading this, expect a phone call tomorrow where you need to be a Ms Colette Nadir).
I said I wouldn't bore you with the cricket (and also so I can direct those of you who are interested in cricket to my site), but suffice to say I had a really good day of it. Sadly, rain intervened on a couple of occasions, cutting the day short. When the rain came again at around 5 (with close of play at 7), I made the brave call to leave early, foreseeing no further play. While I left then, thousands of others stayed, hoping to see more wickets fall. So it gave me slight smug satisfaction when I eventually heard that the day's play had been abandoned as I was walking down the final bit of road from home. (Although not that much, as I would have preferred to have stayed and watched more cricket. It is, after all, why I flew half way across the world...)
Anyway, I'm back home now; safe, sound and dry (eventually) and looking forward to tomorrow's play!
Stay safe, Will
England hero Jonny Trott proving how close I was to the action (I was in the second row)
A ceremonial plastic cup with Australia v England engraved on it. Also pictured, my hairy knee.
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