i wish I were at home instead of looking at the scoreboard tick over in the corner of my screen. Looks like this is going to be a good finish.
Haddin just gone, 23 runs needed with 3 wickets left. Couldn’t be any more finely balanced. Siddle can bat, but they are facing a new ball.
Siddle has gone - 292/8
The TV keeps showing Lyons glancing heavenward…
And his prayers are answered as it is Cummins who (appropriately) hits the winning runs.
Well done Aus - a gritty victory!!
A top finish. I drank about 700 beers too many in the last half hour.
A classic finish to a great match and it seemed good natured after the finish.
I guess a one all series was pretty correct.
What did surprise me was the lack of people at the game today.
Well done to Aus. Good match in the end.
I thought attendance looked pretty low all through the game to be honest - and most people seemed to be on the grass banks rather than in the stands. How much were tickets? When I went out to SA for the British Lions tour in 2009, we discovered that tickets to the Test matches were c. 2 or 3 times more expensive than for an ordinary Tri-Nations test (and consequently, there were empty patches at the first and third test - with the second at Loftus Versfeld being the only one that sold out). If too expensive, they might well have priced out some of the home fans.
It was a cracking test match all told, marred only by the weather curtailing the individual days of play and the fact that it seems nobody in SA was interested in turning up - worrying signs for the 5-day game. I suppose the other downer was the fact that these two teams only warranted a two-test series, which is all but pointless on the surface but not if the SA board realised ticket sales would be so uniformly awful.
And I blame you guys today- you should have reminded me I am far too old to be sitting up until heaven knows when drinking beer and watching cricket.
Jay tea, I also wonder about the point of having a two match series. There would now be enormous interest if there were a few more tests. However, why don’t people attend? It seems only in Australia and England are attendances consistently high (depending of course on who is playing).
I suppose if television rights covers the bills it is no big deal. I can also understand why people don’t attend- the last game I went to was Australia versus India in perth about three years ago. It was a game Australia lost, but the crowd was very good and the catering was shocking.