Miss Field worships at the altar of Adam Gilchrist

It was a sunny day in Perth...

...and the WACA was packed full of Adam Gilchrist well-wishers. The man did well, very well, in fact he made half the total! I'm really pleased he played so fantastically, but what the hell happened to the others... Ponting?! What's going on? I hope everyone noticed though that Ricky Ponting walked before the umpire gave him out. Don't be too hasty in commenting that he damn well should have, because as we all know the press of late has been ranting on that a bad sportsman such as he would never do such a thing.

Anyway I took a load of photos, of which here are a few...
If you can't read that yellow sign it says "The WACA - where Gilly was made!" Aww.

My face is burnt. Not too burnt, but I can feel it and it's sore. Damn. I also bought a new hat, a white wide-brimmed one with the WACA logo on the front. It's just a shame I didn't buy it 'til about 5 pm so I'd already received about four hours worth of exposure to the sun. Bleurgh.

And my sign was on tv apparently. I've had this sign since the 06 Ashes and taken it to every game since, so it's very special and it is a bit disa-Ponting that I'll never get to use it again. A lot of effort went into its creation, which is why only one was made (actually, there's another one for Matthew Hoggard, but I doubt that'll ever get to be used again either). I will miss Gilly and so will the Australian side.

Kumar Sangakkara was great, he battled admirably. It's something we're (usually) good at, never saying die, it was nice to see an opposition batsman with some spine, fighting on while his teammates crashed around him. If they hadn't crashed quite so quickly it would have been a very close game. Andrew Symonds also took a couple of gorgeous catches, and I do mean gorgeous.

I must admit the match did drag in the second half. Maybe I've been to too many Twenty20 games of late, but I found myself counting the overs by the 30th. The crowd were bothering me though, so maybe I was just longing to leave before I caught stupid. I also couldn't really see the pitch much because of the moron in front of me, which brings me to my next point.

Do you know either of these bogans?
They were foul. They were racist, ignorant and stupid. They were abusive to the Sri Lankan players fielding on the boundary and thought they were hilarious. I can't tolerate racism and I couldn't stay quiet so I told them what I thought of their behaviour, but I once had a more intellectual conversation with a cabbage. Apparently they are brother and sister. I wonder if their parents are also brother and sister. If you know them, please tell them Miss Field thinks they're dickheads.

The crowd (read: mob) annoyed me towards the end, especially the pillock pictured above. I'm not the fun police but don't stand on the chair in front of me, bellowing "show us yer mammories" to some tart a few rows in front who's giggling "oh stop it" but doesn't sit down herself. And fine, put all your plastic cups together to make a long line of plastic cups, but just let me watch the damn game.

I don't have a problem with people drinking at cricket games, I do it, but if you're going to get totally hammered and not pay any attention to the game and just annoy everyone around you, why not watch it from a pub or better still from home. You'd save yourself money, and the sanity of people who actually have a brain and want to see the match.

The game was good, but as my best friend Ruth pointed out, you can really tell the difference between a one day crowd and a test crowd. Although I think the weather also plays a part. On muggy, overcast days they go feral. There was a match last year at the WACA that I went to, and the heavens opened and the lightning was crashing and the crowd went mad. Troppo.

I also took this picture for Suave.
Enjoy.

EDIT: Here's a clearer one for your scrapbook. I refrained from drawing love hearts on it for you.