Spectators,
Trundled my vintage Toyota Camry [just re-registered at 21 years old] along Driver Ave on Sunday morning and parked right out the front of the Members Gate [jeez, don't the crowds flock in for the Shield? They were beating back the unruly mob trying to get in with rattan canes] at the advertised start time and wandered into the SCG without anyone noticing, only to find that they had been playing for an hour already, with NSW very well placed for the first innings lead.
What with the first two days being seriously affected by heavy rain and the way they are mucking about with the lunch and tea breaks in the Shield this year [they are now half an hour each, so lunch is now too short, and tea is too long. Progress, apparently. Can't see it, for mine. If it's not broke, why fix it?], no one really had any idea if or when any cricket would be played on the day.
As it turned out it was a picture postcard perfect day in the Emerald City; 25 degrees, a pleasant breeze and fluffy white clouds across the sky.
Me ol' mate Trev ambled in later with his tow lads in tow, and we got to talking why Katich wasn't picked in the current test team, just as we started to have a look at The Kat go about making a very good hundred, along with the 18 year old debutant Kurtis Patterson, batting at No.6 [who went onto to make 157 - the highest score by the youngest player on debut in Strayan first class cricket, no less] and put on a 200+ run partnership.
Brilliant, plain & simple.
From time to time we mumbled to each other, that back in day, a mix of yoof and experience was considered an essential requirement in any winning sports team.
We wondered why The Suburban Boy had been picked to open in the first test against the Blicks, when the Kat has opened for Straya more than once or twice, and has the small matter of 56 games under the baggy green to his credit.
And he can't get a game?
Just a sorry shame that his mouth and one man - who just now happens to be a selector - who he tried to strangle at one point, stands in his way.
The Mongoloid who was sitting a couple of rows across from us kept on calling out "Where's Michael?" "Where's Michael?" "Where's Michael?", until his minders told him to shut up.
Don't quite know what he was implying, but if it was that the Australian Captain should've been playing, or at the very least, standing around in the Members Bar with his Selectors Hat on having a very good look at proceedings, then he was spot on.
MJ Clarke was in town, after all, but nowhere to be seen at the ground.
Not that we don't like Warner.
Oh No Siree.
Just a few weeks a ago we'd both been at Bankstown to see Justa put on plenty, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way he clean clubs the ball with that great thumping tree stump that he's got for a bat [Lance Cairns' old baseball bat has nothing on it]; the thing is, he's fine bat, but still really untried in the first class game, so to ditch him into test cricket might end up being to no one's advantage, particularly as he's just filling in for the perpetually injured FIGJAM.
All things being equal, Katich should be playing in Brisvegas, but he isn't, and that's that - another of the many iniquities to be found in the summer game.
The Kat wasn't in much of a hurry to do anything starting the day, as he knew he had all day to shuffle about on the crease.
Against a dead-set pop-gun WA attack [they used seven bowlers on the day] with nothing much more penetrating than some sharpish medium pace from a bloke called Rimmington, Simon Says was happy enough with his immaculate forward defence and to rock back and forth on the back foot and just patiently wait to smack the rubbish.
And smack it he did, smacked it good.
At one point he clocked the perfect pull shot; by the time the sound of the ball cracking off the bat reached you in the MA Noble Stand, the ball was already at the boundary and the sound of it clattering into the fence hoardings followed soon after.
The Patterson Kiddie, in contrast, was keen to get on with it.
He was nervy and edgy to start, as could be expected, putting a couple over the heads of the slips that better batsmen would have hit at head high and been caught, but soon settled in.
A tallish upright left hander with a compact stance, he's clearly in love with the cover drive, and why wouldn't you be when you can play it that well?
Some good boundaries via that stroke, but he's a bit airy fairy in his leg side play that could see him caught out there on any other day with a few too many balls played in the air.
Also pushed plenty of balls to point for singles and some two's and three's backward of point.
Looked like a pro.
Obviously, you don't make a very good hundred on debut if you can't play.
Kurtis' Mum and Dad were in the ground forming the nucleus of the cheer squad, along with his two younger sisters who were flitting around with cameras, and by the time he's notched up his half century and word had got out on the street, another fifty people had joined them, all loudly boostering the kid when he made a good shot.
Lovely.
All in all, a good day out.
Seems like they've refurbished the beer taps in Monte's Bar to pour a half-way decent, and cold, Carlton Draught as we thank the Good Lord Joisus that the execrable, warm, Toohey's New has finally been relegated to the sluice bucket where it belongs.
A welcome development, even if they are still slugging you six-fitty for a schooner.
The offal pies were the same as they've ever been down the years; allegedly delicious served piping hot out of the thermo-nuclear pie warmer with all the sauces.
As we nibbled around the burning edges, we also pondered the poor fate of Trent "The Muso" Copeland, who of course, was never called upon to do anything all day.
We both saw him on debut at the ground a year or two back, and he's done nothing wrong since.
He's already got a baggy green, so you don't have to mint a new one, having played in all the recent test matches in Ceylon, and yet he can't get a place in the first test side to play the Kiwi Kuzzins, even with so many injuries in the bowling ranks.
What the?
He must be scratching his head and wondering what he has to do and if he's now a prime candidate to become a three test wonder, and put his cap in a glass case.
Beyond belief.
It's a funny game.
