Cricket’s back, Melbourne’s back

I usually try hard to avoid cliches, but avoiding cliches has its pitfalls.

A Sydney Morning Herald article the other day tried so hard to avoid calling 2020 ”unprecedented” that it made an unprecedently mind-bending leap in logic.

“This year wasn’t unprecedented. If anything, it set the precedent”

Of course, if something has set the precedent, that thing was, by definition, unprecedented, because if it already had a precedent, it wouldn’t have set the precedent.

So, after translating that garbled last sentence, what the headline really says is:

“This year wasn’t unprecedented. If anything, it was unprecedented.”

Sometimes then, it’s just easier to use cliches, and so, when describing my day at the Boxing Day Test, my first day of live sport for 362 days, I’ll use most of them:

• India won the day of cricket, but the city of Melbourne was the real winner!
• The masks and social distancing took a while to get used to!
• 4 months ago, who’d have thought we’d be here on Boxing Day?!
• Cricket’s back! Melbourne’s back!
• All in all, the day felt different AND normal at the same time!

***

The rigmarole of entering the ground was, true to that last cliche, both different and normal. Different in that there were new rituals and procedures to be followed, normal in that those rituals and procedures seemed just as ill-thought out as the old ones.

“Pack all your belongings into the provided clear plastic bags so its easier for the security guards to inspect them, unless you have your own bag which is smaller than A4 (and yes, the MCG has now adopted paper sizes as its standard unit of bag measurement) in which case you can forget about the new transparent-so-its-easier-for-the-guards rule, because the opaqueness of the bag will be cancelled out by the smallness of the bag. Oh, and when you get to the security guard with the explosives-testing wand, stand on the green sticker to ensure you are 1.5 metres away from him, even though he isn’t standing on his sticker, meaning that by standing on your sticker, you’re actually standing closer to him than you would have if you’d just used common sense and stood a few paces away from him. Thanks for your compliance.”

Stepping back into the ground was like that weird feeling you get coming home after a long holiday. Everything was exactly as I’d left it, but looked strangely unfamiliar. It was the opposite of deja vu; I felt like I’d never been before there, even though I knew I had.

These feelings faded as I settled into the rhythm of the day. The toss, the anthem, James Sherry’s cheesy MC work; watery coffee, Red Rooster strips and chips, Mount Franklin bottles at heavily inflated places; cheered maidens, jeered misfields, incomprehensible chants from the bays of Indian supporters.

The cricket was exciting, though, to an Australian eye, not entirely enjoyable. Wade, Labuschagne and Smith threw their wickets away, while Head, Paine and Green threw away good starts, albeit to well-directed deliveries. Burns was a dual victim of good bowling and poor selection, with Langer and co so wedded to incumbency and a left-right opening combo that it’s incumbent right-hander is now a walking wicket.

Rahane won plaudits on Twitter for his strategic nous, but for most of the morning his strategy seemed entirely devoid of nous. Yadav opened with 6 straight overs of wide half-trackers from the members end, a spell that, after Siraj’s lively post-lunch display, seemed like 6 overs too many. The premature introduction of Jadeja in the first 20 overs eased the pressure on Labuschagne and Head, while, had Bumrah been reintroduced earlier, Australia’s most fruitful partnership may well have been halved.

India’s bowlers were the real heroes. Setting a leg slip for Smith is a tactic that’s been used since the last Ashes in Australia, and it doesn’t take a genius captain to employ it. It does, though, take a genius off-spinner to bamboozle Smith with enough turn and bounce to make him, for half a second, mute the voice inside his head screaming “DON’T HIT IT BEHIND SQUARE, DON’T HIT IT BEHIND SQUARE”.

Bumrah looked threatening with every ball of every spell, while Siraj bowled with the sort of control and aggression you need if you want to pull off a freshly barbered man-bun on a cricket field.

The Aussies stumbled to 195, a lean total that, as many on Twitter gleefully pointed out, could still be competitive if India batted to form.

Agarwal did exactly that, trapped in front by Starc for a duck, to go with 17 and 9 at Adelaide. Debutant Shubman Gill also batted to form, backing up his astonishing First Class numbers (2270 runs at 68.78) with a confident looking 28 before stumps.

The ‘G was absolutely heaving in that last hour, the Indian fans roaring for every run, and the Aussie fans ‘OOOH’ing every play and miss..

As I sat up on Level 2 of the Great Southern Stand, drumming on the seat in front of me every time Starc thundered in to the crease, I wasn’t thinking about deja vu, or cliches, or arbitrary transparent bag rules.

I felt, for the first time in a year, the pure ecstasy of being absorbed in live sport. Those freeing moments where you’re entirely devoid of self, where nothing matters but the next ball, the next over, the next session.

Some things are different, but some things never change.