2 days Ago By Malcolm Knox
Defying rain and road congestion, the Sydney Test match has earned its place as one of cricket’s social highlights. Big crowds dust off their most unflattering garments for a display of charity in the name of Jane McGrath. They focus on the game between catching up with friends to unpack the politics of family Christmases and break the rule that what happens on New Year’s Eve stays on New Year’s Eve.
Going to the cricket is a unique occasion of unforced togetherness. This time, there was all this and cricket, too! Morning rain and Sydney’s traffic turned out to be empty threats. Australia’s recent run of dominant cricket was uninterrupted by weather or the Indian top order.
Not that it was all sponsor’s product and skittles. Sydney came together for the national anthems but duly split apart over Virat Kohli, whose arrival at the crease sent the city on an emotional roller-coaster. Like Kohli’s entire summer, it was short and turbulent.
Sections of the crowd booed the Indian champion (formerly mega-, then super-, now merely star) as he walked out. Other sections scowled and booed at the booing. It was no way to treat one of cricket’s greats in probably his last Test match in Australia.
“Probably” was “certainly” a few moments later, when Kohli edged his first delivery to slip and Steve Smith somehow got his right hand under the ball for a brilliant catch. Then the video replay was sent to third umpire Joel Wilson, always a twilight zone of uncertainty, and the result came back in Kohli’s favour . He was booed again and then again a little while later when he was irreversibly out.
The booing was still no way to treat him. Or maybe it was a show of respect? In any case, as rich as Croesus and more globally famous than even Nick Kyrgios, Kohli is assumed to have a skin as thick as armour. Australians spent a century playing cricket with a chip on their shoulder against their overlords England.
Now they can direct those comforting resentments against their overlord India, represented, not for much longer, by Kohli. Meanwhile, the social occasion was ramping up. In the nosebleed seats, it was getting harder to keep track of whose brother’s ex-wife had blown up Christmas lunch and who made a complete embarrassment of themselves between the nine o’clock and midnight fireworks on NYE.
Even harder when these were people you didn’t know, being narrated from the row behind you. With a sellout crowd, seats were at a premium. One man, who shall be referred to as “Knobhead”, was saving a seat for his alleged “mate” by putting his backpack on it.
The “mate” didn’t turn up by lunch, so Knobhead was asked if his backpack would mind sitting on the floor. Knobhead then demanded $25, the fee he claimed to have paid for reserving the seat. No kidding, this actually happened.
Back at the cricket, Rishabh Pant kept his brain intact for more than two defensive hours, responding stoically to criticism of his performances in Melbourne. He was hit in the euphemistic “midriff” so often that he brought to mind the old Naked Vicar skit: “Lillee to Cowdrey. Oh, dear, hit him in the groin .
.. Lillee to Cowdrey again.
Oh, dear, hit him in the groin...
” As with Cowdrey, it kept on happening to Pant. Sydney had another reason to come together in one emotion. Even Knobhead’s backpack’s eyes were watering.
Finally, the repeated blows sent a message to Pant’s brain. It went off, and he went off. Sydney’s togetherness, while strained at times, grew tighter as wickets fell in the afternoon.
Some of the grinding play was only a little more entertaining than rain, but that didn’t matter. No current cricketer can unite Australians so snugly as Scott Boland, who got rid of India’s finest: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kohli and Pant. When he dismissed Nitish Kumar Reddy, the unassuming folk hero was on a hat-trick.
He didn’t get it, but a unified Sydney crowd chanted ‘Bo-land, Bo-land, Bo-land’. It soon petered out, not sounding showbiz enough. Also fitting.
The last hour gave the city another frisson, the anticipation of local boy Sam Konstas having a bat. He did, sharing a social moment with Jasprit Bumrah, who then dismissed Usman Khawaja with the last ball of the day. Action to the end.
The neighbours’ situations over Christmas and NYE had been sorted. Knobhead and backpack had left, no doubt to share a flight home and maybe extort a fare out of an unlucky passenger. The pink from the shirts had migrated to the faces and was no more flattering.
Still no rain, a New Year’s miracle, but the traffic and Bumrah were beginning to look ominous. Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter .
.
