Summer beckons, and that means cricket is in the air. On Friday, the first Test match of the Ashes series started in Perth. I watched bits of it and followed it intermittently on radio. It was a bit of a frenzy, with wickets tumbling – 19 fell on the first day…
On a different note, not long after we started going to St Alfred’s Anglican Church at Blackburn North, we became part of a homegroup that met at the Maurys. Matthew was the CEO of Tearfund Australia then, and Susan lead the group. They were from the US and worked for a long time in ministry in Africa (South Africa), before moving to Australia.
Late last year, Matthew started a role with ACFID (Australian Council for International Development) that is based in Canberra and when that role took on a longer term nature, Susan joined him here. They have been living and working in Canberra for a few months and last week, they messaged us and we caught up for dinner on Saturday. It was really nice to chat about families, St Alf’s and our lives generally, again. The lovely food at the Namaste Indian Restaurant was a bonus.
Kiddo and her mob had attended a Wiggles concert earlier that day and the kids went to Mic’s parents at Gungahlin while the Kiddo and Mic went on a lunch date. So we didn’t see the two little angels till Sunday, at SBC.
Earlier on Saturday, we had walked the pooches to the Kambah playing fields and peeked at the little neighbourhood Christmas pop up stalls at Kambah Village, before coming home to leave little Oreo at home and went to Belco for lunch. I had missed the best Malaysian food in Canberra for some weeks so I was very much looking forward to this.
After lunch, we came back and I started on working on the lawns and the garden beds, while Tress went for a hairdresser appointment. It was an overcast Saturday arvo and I worked at a leisurely pace while listening in on Day 2 of the Test in Perth. I had also borrowed Mic’s little electric chainsaw, to cut down a few stumps of little shrubs and trees that I had cut down some months before. It was just after the lunch break in Perth when I was winding up and the score was 1-62 with Aus bowling at the English, trailing the Poms somewhat. I thought it was going to be a hard slog for the Aussies and the English would probably win in 3 days, or certainly not seeing any play for Day 5.
I cleaned up, and just after 4pm, as I settled down to watch the game, Boland picked up a few wickets, with the English batters sloppily attempting drives at balls flying down wide and on the up. Boland had ably deputised superstar Starc, who had spectacularly did a bowled and caught earlier in the day and who was almost certainly going to get 10 wickets for the match.
When Tress came back close to 5 and we then headed for dinner with the Maurys, England was still batting, albeit with the tailenders adding to a lead that was just past 200 runs.
After dinner, while driving back, I turned the radio on to ABC Sports and the commentators went on about Travis Head’s feat. Little did I know Aus was closing in on a famous and miraculous win. We got home in time to see Smith smack one square on the off side for the winning run. A win, inside 2 days – a resurrection quicker than Lazarus, with Head blazing the second fastest Ashes 100. I had seen Gilchrist get the fastest (also in Perth) but apparently Head’s is more breathtaking (from the sounds of it). Somehow, he didn’t win MOTM (Starc did) but even this morning, I was still trying to catch up on “what just happened”.
Sorry, Matthew and Susan – catching up with you guys was very nice, but my memory of this past weekend will, like the rest of Australia, be the one with Head removing his helmet, shake his head with that ridiculous haircut, enroute to that “what just happened” win. A “Travball” performance (mocking the English “Bazball” moniker) to remember. Sir Alex Ferguson famously said “Football, bloody hell”. I am inclined to say the same thing about cricket, especially the Ashes Down Under.
Ante 