One Day Cricket

It hasn't been a good summer for Australian cricket. Losing the Test series and one day series to South Africa, the Chappell-Hadlee series against New Zealand offered a chance for redemption. But Australia was 2-1 down in the best of 5 series coming into Game 4 at Adelaide Oval today.

I took a day (well afternoon/evening) off from unpacking to spend the day at the cricket. Given it was a Tuesday, the crowd was small, but the weather was fine and the view great from the southern hill.

The flags were all at half mast in memory of those who died over the weekend in the tragic Victorian bushfires. All proceeds from today's game went to the Bushfire Appeal.


Here's the Australian team observing a moment's silence before the start of the game.

New Zealand won the toss and batted first. Here's Nathan Bracken (Australia's current best one-day bowler) going through the motion.

These balls reach almost 100 mph!

This is the famous Adelaide Oval scoreboard, which has resisted modernisation over the years. Everything you need to know about the state of the game is on the board somewhere. What's unusual about this photo is some yobbo who's climbed on top of the bar in front of the scoreboard to rescue an inflatable toy they'd been throwing around. He got up there quickly, but took more than 10 minutes to get back down.

New Zealand recovered to score an impressive target of 244 runs.

Here's the show that was put on as the sun set. The flight path to Adelaide airport passes just to the north of the Oval and you get a great view coming in.

Australia came into bat and started well, but lost some quick wickets, including a ridiculous run out of the in form Brad Haddin by David Hussey. Fortunately he focussed and got on with the game and lead Australia towards victory.

The electronic scoreboard next to the 'old' scoreboard is used to graphically display when something goes on.

There's also a third umpire who uses video to determine the result of a near decision with the help of the 20 million cameras situated around the ground. We waited anxiously for this decision near the end of the innings.

YES!

And Australia comfortably won, with a 6 winning the game with 10 balls to spare. No problem.