90,000 fans, each one of whom I am convinced had no idea what the hell was going on, roared around the stadium at the start of the KFC 20/20 Australia-India cricket match. The two countries have been playing against each other in various locations for the last month now, so seeing them scheduled to play in Melbourne, of course I couldn't miss out. Melbourne has been called Australia's sport's capital, with cricket, basketball, rugby, and a curious thing called Aussie Rules Football (or footie), which started here in this very city. A surprising thing is that you would expect footie to be the dominant sport, but its really only taken hold in Victoria and New South Whales. The rest of the country loves good old fashioned rugby, perhaps on account that "footie" is the wimpiest nickname for a sport I have ever heard in my entire life.
In Melbourne however on this day, cricket ruled all. The Melbourne Cricket Grounds are hallowed grounds to many Australians of any sports denomination, holding a sort of Wembley or Yankee Stadium-like appeal for the masses. Its a shrine. And make fun of cricket all you want (which I will, shortly), the stadium is absolutely huge. Big enough for 100,000 people at full capacity, the field stretches in a huge oval, easily fitting over 5 football fields within it. Only 22 men occupy the field at any time, so it literally dwarfs them. Considering that the stands are so far back, even with the best seats you are still sadly far away from the action - from my point of view, the players looked like insects, and hence the name of the sport.
The matches have been generating some controversy lately, with an Indian player accused of using a racial epitaph to describe a black Aussie player during a game. The Australians for their part have been accused of violating the spirit of the game by arguing calls and trying to trick umpires on catches. So pretty much, they are on par with American sports on this.
One thing I've been loving in Sydney and now, Melbourne, has been the mass transportation, a commonly reoccurring theme for me. Both cities feature a bus system, many trams, subways, trains, and Sydney even has a monorail. And they all work. As the tram to the stadium became jam packed with Aussies and Indians going to the game, I found myself smashed against the door and not for the first time, found myself reminiscing about New York subways. Everyone else was complaining, but there in the middle was a strange man smiling in peaceful bliss, in his own world: me. So, what do you call a tram packed with hundreds of smelly, sweaty Aussies and Indians on a 85 degree day?
Australian Curry, of course. (And even better, when its time to get off of the tram they all get the runs - to their seats, of course!).
I did some quick studying of the rules before leaving and I figured out you get points by three ways: hitting the ball beyond the outer barrier (6 pts), hitting the ball and having it roll to the barrier (3 pts), and hitting the ball and running to a line about 30 yards away from you (1 pt). The other team gets an out by a strike (pitching the ball and hitting a "wicket" - one of three sticks behind the batter), catching a hit ball in the air, and throwing at and hitting a wicket while the other team is running to the opposite line. There are all sorts of other rules, but the important thing to remember is that they mean nothing at all.
Imagine a baseball game, where just for this particular game, they decide to change the rules to make it exciting. All double plays become worth 1 run. Hitting a home run, to the relief of confused housewives everywhere, becomes a touch down. And you do this, not for a regular game, but for an inter league or playoff game (just one!). That is international cricket, where the rules change. 20/20 cricket is much different than 50/50 cricket, which is in itself different than "cricket". Only God knows why and he's still probably confused if he thinks about it too much. All I know is that the Australians "won" when their batter didn't even swing at a ball and it bounced into the hands of an Indian player behind him. No swing, no out, but still, one point. Game over, but nothing happened that I could see. Everyone was leaving and happy, but I was positive that nothing important just happened. To quote the immortal Will Ferrell, I wanted to shout out, "Am I the only one who sees this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!"
Still, I came for the experience and for that, the fans delivered. Beach balls and inflated condoms (pity the man who tried to blow up a lubricated one) bounced all around the stadium, 90,000 boos when security took them away. One beach ball shaped like a punching bag landed near me, so I promptly hit it up in the air, the weighted bottom of the thing propelling it with lightning speed into the face of a 70 year old woman. Nice. And I had the company of the people around me, one traveller from Canada overheard saying how he didn't like maps because it "made him look like a tourist" - which makes perfect sense of course, coming from someone wearing a baseball cap with the words "CANADA" written on it.
Fans were reminded again and again that throwing things on the field was illegal, cursing was illegal, and the Mexican Wave was illegal. And what, exactly was a Mexican Wave? A wave where people yelled "Ole!"? No, as far as I could tell, it was a normal wave that any true Seattlelite will tell you over and over ad naseum that it was invented in Seattle at a huskies game. At some point in its travel to Australia, it just picked up a Mexican passport.
Still, I dream of a day when every country has their own wave. A Scottish wave traveling with kilts lifted up, a Mexican wave with sombreros tossed into the air, an Australian wave with beers saluting all around the stadium. Dare to dream.