MrGareth’s Missives

It is known as The Colosseum - mainly because of its shape and a chequered history of inhospitable crowds and poor odds for visiting teams - but the first time I saw Calcutta's Eden Gardens about 15 years ago, I dared to dream that one day I might see England play there.  Through a quirk of fate, that dream came true this week, and it has not remotely disapointed.  Not only has the cricket been tremendously enjoyable - including fine performances from two of the world's greatest test batsmen- but the atmosphere has been electric, just as I imagined.

Getting to the ground was more than a challenge. Because of the heat, and unlike most test cricketing nations that kick off around 11am, Test matches in India begin at 9am, so we failed to get there on time due to an abject inability to read the small print on the tickets.  That failure was even more punnishing when we got there to be told that cameras of any kind were "not permitted" (something else mentioned on the tickets) and so we had to walk back to the hotel to leave them behind.  Although only a short 20 minute walk, that walk took us through the Calcutta Bus Station - easily the worst square half mile I've ever been in, full of the most putrid smells and rotten filth and fraught with the danger of traffic and the sad sights of tiny, often injured and certainly destitute puppies.  

Finally we made it along to the ground, and were soon put upon by one of the stranger invasions of privacy I've experienced.  It is often said that one of the problems with India is that you can find yourself being stared at by a crowd people as you go about your business.  This annoyance reached new heights as a TV camerman parked himself infront of us as we watched the cricket and trained his lense on us...for about 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes he relaxed his tired arm, but instead of walking away or focussing on the cricket as we hoped he might; he instead called up his tripod carrier so he could film us some more without effort!  We weren't entirely sure why we drew so much attention, but we eventually concluded it was True-Aussie Terresa's "I love India" hat!

While Terresa made her colours clear, I too had ended up accidently wearing my sympathies on my sleave - literally.  On the way to the ground a chap offered to paint the St George Cross on my arm.  I said "no" but he refused to listen and did it anyway.  However, the badly painted white and blood-red cross led most people to just think I had sustained an injury!

The first day we cooked in the hot Calcutta sun, ironic of course as England's Captain is named Alistair Cook.  England accounted for themselves well and held India to 270-odd at stumps, taking the crucial wicket of Sachin Tendulkar well short of the century his adoring fans had hoped for.  We made it along in the afternoon for the second day and by then England had bowled out India for a modest 316 and were well on the way to a controlling first innings total with the Captain and opener on the way to a century of his own.

Yet at times - in this ground well known for its riots and once referred to as a "Cauldron" (by Bob Willis - one of the only English 11 to win here) - various incidents of crowd insanity were far more compelling than the genteel events at the crease.  The ground certainly boasts the noisiest and fastest Mexican Wave of any I've been in.  The Barmy army -  who usually command any ground they visit - had been strangely silent on day one and, I suspect, probably didn't expect to be spending the day in a "dry" ground. By Day two, however, they were far more rowdy - had they all found a creative way to smuggle in alcohol I wondered?  But pretty soon the Indians had crowded out their area and at times drowned out their tunes - I've seen the barny army quiet, but never silenced.  Luckily they had brought a trumpet which certainly helped.

 

Most of all though, the adulation for the "Little Master", Sachin Tendulkar, is beyond hero worship. Whenever he was posted to the boundary to field, the crowd flocked to meet him like so many moths to a flame. In fact the crowd followed him to such a degree soldiers were deployed to manage them wherever Sachin went to field, often getting crushed against the fencing in their efforts.  The sheer noise of their excitement at his very presence was indeed deafening and always detracted from the cricket.  In fact, noise and heat were - as I had expected 15 years before - the overwhelming aspects of this experience.  Very few people could concentrate at the crease against the din raised on Sharma's run up or when Trott faced his first ball.  But - I am happy to say - England proved solid and unswayable and could be - as I write - on their way to their first victory here since the 70s.

Our Eden Gardens adventure ended as it had began - on the TV.  A TV interview for both of us on our exit of the ground about our views on the match.  I said that I thought England might win, Aussie Terresa proudly declared said she hoped India would!

 

Of course The Ashes series here in Australia has dominated the summer; a contest involving a strong rivalry, oscillating fortunes, controversy and naturally some great performances with bat and ball that has done the game of cricket proud.  But at the risk of trying the patience of those more than over the subject,  there’s also been another series, going by the same name and involving many of the same characteristics – but one also I like to think doing the game proud.

While the first has been dione and dusted for very nearly two months now, this somewhat smaller and less well known contest came to its denouement today in the tense final minutes as the English tail wagged and the series came down right to the wire after looking all but there for the taking for the Australians.

Now I should add, this is not a professional series.  In fact this effort is so amateur there wasn’t one nets session the whole summer.  The crowd was considerably less than the hundreds of thousands who attended the other Ashes, and no one watched it on television.  While there was some sponsorship, it amounted to a few hundred dollars invested in shirts a couple of years ago – and we are still wearing them.

But make no mistake, there was just as much at stake.

With Australia taking the first match back in November – at the same venue, Tunks Park on Sydney's North Shore; and England taking the second (which I was not able to play in) in December in Balmain, the series was level.

The rules are very slightly different too: 35 overs, forced retirement after scoring 25 runs (able to come back in later when all the other batsmen are out), five overs only per bowler and a free hit for the one’s first ball.  The atmosphere of “everyone should have a go” drives the game to ensure to full participation.  God knows with the quality of my batting and bowling, I’m a big fan of these rules!

Some early and impressive wickets from the dangerous bowling of England Captain, Mr Garvey, and England looked confidently in control before the bowlers and fielders tired in the 30 degree heat and the Australians ran up an intimidating 213 by the 35th over.  For the Australians, Mssrs Finn and Clarke in particular, the bat became an extension of their arms and the runs just kept coming and the chances were missed (not least when I perplexingly dropped a sitter of a catch!)  But with a wicket in the last over, we at least went into tea upbeat.

The English batting got off to a fairly strong start after one early wicket and a successful chase was built – mainly by the Man of the Match, Mr Cutler, carrying an unhealed broken thumb.  But then calamity struck.  A mid-order batting collapse any English side would have been proud of.  Suddenly the required run rate got away from us and the wickets piled up.  Penetrative bowling by the Australians  did for the English – myself included, caught behind for 7 – and by tea, even their English team mates had given up and began making plans for the evening.

But quietly, while the crowd – numbering about twenty people, half of them under 10 – became embroiled in preparing food, drinking beer and generally chewing the fat, the English tag wagged.  And wagged. And wagged.  Eleventh Man Mr Riley built successive partnerships with returning 25-ers Mssrs Cutler and Garvey and before long the target was in sight.  Suddenly it was 23 runs needed from 18 balls.  The total was finally put away with a loudly-cheered six in the last over and the poms stole the series 2-1.

After eight years – five of which I have been lucky enough to be involved - the whole rivalry is now locked at four-four.  Season 2011-12 will no doubt take the tension to a new level!

(Pictures here.)

I'm of course well aware that there are many in the world find it staggering alone that a game of cricket - of anything in fact - can take five days to complete.  It is therefore even more galling to people that at the end of that process you can still not even have a result!  I recognise that this may seem a little stagnant, stale or futile even.  But I must reassure those worried about the wasted energy, time and money invested in cricket, despite the draw the first  Ashes test in Brisbane has been one of the best examples of why test cricket surpasses anything for sporting drama and excitement and was well worth it regardless.  The drama and significance of the long weekend entirely negated any apparent anti-climax a draw might be accused of. 

In answer to someone asking after my health this past weekend, I did in fact admit that my mood and spirits were entirely dictated by the cricket, and at that particular moment this was not positive.  Its hard to describe the horribly and deeply sick feeling I and millions of others experienced when the English Captain Andrew Strauss was out on his third ball (especially given the ghosts of our last start here); or the disbelief and horror I felt as Peter Siddle savaged through the English batting middle order in one over and in consecutive balls, taking a historic rare-as-hen's-teeth hat trick (only the third in more than a century of Ashes cricket). These miserable events were happening to me almost as much as they were to the players involved.  (The degree to which your own interests are at stake when you are a pom living in Australia cannot be overstated.  That's not to say that it's any more important to a pom in Australia than someone living in Fulham.  It isn't.  But as a collective we are considerably more exposed.  Social media has meant this at times light hearted banter, and at other times verbal combat, is all pervasive of course - as Ashley Kerekes (aka @theashes) can attest.)

The oscillating emotions experienced by a test cricket student (and with a myriad of statistics and history to keep across, to consume an ashes test match is more like study than spectating) covers an entire spectrum from end to end.  Especially when it involves the often unpredictable English sporting temperament.  Shortly before Peter Siddle took three wickets in consecutive balls - on his birthday no less - I had been talking to my father online.  He had just risen, living in the northern hemisphere, and asked how the cricket had gone on the first day.  At that point it was looking relatively comfortable despite Strauss' early and fruitless exit.  "But" I said, "it just depends on how the middle order do."  Not ten minutes later Siddle scalped his three hat trick victims, Pietersen, Prior and Broad -they *were* that middle order!   That is how quickly test cricket can turn.

England were doomed twice during the course of the match and came back twice, with bat and ball, to steal a draw from defeat's jaw.  Australia too were in turn dominant and dictated to during separate phases of the turbulent five day battle.  Hussey and Haddin's 307 partnership was truly awesome in it's perseverance and determination - particularly amid what Haddin describes as the "toughest and highest quality test bowling you’re going to get".  Yet Cooks's historic 235 run contribution to the final 517/1 2nd innings English total was equally inspiring and even miraculous - the highest total ever without losing a second wicket.  (After so many appalling English batting collapses, its also impossible to decribe how much delight those figures brought.)

The match saw the establishment of two new National heroes - Cook and Siddle - yet both were not even certain to make the team only a month before the test.  While it saw the dramatic debut of one new player, the phlegmatic Steve Finn who got a six-for (six wickets from his bowling), it probably also saw the death nail in Mitchell johnson's career who's bowling endeavors cost 170 runs for no wicket, fielding saw a dropped catch and batting saw a 19-ball duck.  

Finally anyone familiar with the history of The Gabba, (affectionately known in Australia as the Gabbatoir) and its usually fatal impact on the ambitions of so many visiting teams cannot possibly deny the importance of a draw there.  But anyway, what is so exciting is that whatever happened in Brisbane, anything can happen.  Despite the most impressive English batting performance since 1924, and the highest Gabba Total since Bradman; Sir Ian Botham's warning about Australian sporting virility still rings true and should deter any complacency - "you can pick eleven random blokes off an Aussie beach and still expect a decent game from them". 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly I won't actually get to a game until the Ashes Series comes to Sydney in January, but watching it now reminds me of the greatest day's cricket-watching I can remember, during the 2002-03 series.  It wasn't really the cricket that was so amazing, although it was a win for England (miserably this was the last Test Win in Australia for England!).  But being lucky enough to be sitting where the old Hill used to be at the SCG meant I was right in the middle of the Barmy Army.  I thought it might be worth sharing what I wrote at the time for those lacking that unique experience of watching cricket from within the ranks for the Barmy Army.  Sadly Australian grounds now try to split up the Army as much as possible to dilute their influence, but in those days the core corps were well centralised in one place and dominated the day's proceedings.

"It’s unusual to go to a sporting event to watch the spectators rather than the spectacle, but because of the reputation of the English Barmy Army as the Ashes road-show rolled into Sydney for the final test, that’s exactly what we did do, and its a spectacle I shan't forget in a hurry.

Tickets for the fourth day, put us smack in the middle of the Barmy crowd, with England in bat and surprisingly an imposing 252 for 2 ahead (or as they say down under, 2 for 252) in the second innings.  I didn’t have any idea just what to expect.

Taking my seat, I settled down to what I expected to be a day’s sedate cricket watching just in the shade from a warm (late twenties), slightly breezey Sydney summer’s day: you know, the gentle brush of leather on willow and so on.  About half an hour into the morning, after little more than a few cheers and claps, several hundred people to the left of us suddenly stood up, arms in the air, and sang out, " we're the left side, we're the left side, we're the left side over here," and sat down.  Odd, I thought.  Seconds later, everyone around us stood up and sang out, "we're the middle, we're the middle, we're the middle over here" and sat down again, closely followed by everyone to our right singing, "we're the right side, we're the right side, we're the right side over here."  My confusion turned to hilarious laughter when the entire Barmy Army then stood up, pointed to the right at where unsuspecting Aussie fans sat and sang out, "you're the convicts, you're the convicts, you're the convicts over there!" (For a video of this performance, go here.)

It wasn’t just me who was unaware what to expect.  Most of these are of course English football fans adapting songs they sing week in, week out for cricket, all foreign to the Australian crowd who are strangers to a singing culture like this.  However, their reputation proceeded them, and the Barmy Army were allocated the section of the SCG as far from the Members enclosure as possible.

The Barmy Army are a hotchpotch of young men, wearing a uniform of English team shirts of all kinds, rugby, cricket and from football clubs from all divisions.  They are trained to sustain the punishment of a tour that requires you to endure 30 days of cricket watching, under the Australian sun with beer constantly in hand.  Each day of cricket or beach-bumming is followed by a drill of all night drinking sessions, every night for two months.  Their skin, bottoms, wallets and livers all suffer for a duty to English cricket.

As lunch approached and England hero Michael Vauhan made 183, their singing soon began to eclipse the cricket as the main spectacle and incessant beer consumption took effect. What I became quickly familiar with was the sight of thousands of people able to stand and sing entirely as if one entity: an Army.  

Before long, I was introduced to the Army's signature song (video), led by a strange gent who bares a remarkable resemblance to Jimmy Saville (pictured).  This middle-aged chap from Oldham, was sitting about twelve rows ahead of me, wearing a tall three-lions, inflatable top hat, St George vest and waving a huge St George Flag.  His moment was heralded by a small group around him singing, "Jimmy, Jimmy give us a song." 

Standing up, he settled his audience putting his finger to shooshing mouth in Pied Piper style, pointed to the scoreboard and shouted Saville-esque, "How's about that then, guys and galls?"  Then he began a well-rehearsed routine, while the Army echo each line in turn:

"Everywhere we goooooo-o, the people want to knooooooo-ow, whooooooooo we are ,and where we come from,shall we tell them,

whoooooooo we are, and where we come from?

We are the England, the mighty, mighty, England, we are the Army, the Barmy, Barmy Army!"

Then, altogether, they leaped up in their hundreds for the Barmy Army's anthem din that echoed across the Sydney Cricket Ground with staccato clapping, "Hoo-ssain's Barmy Army," over and over again for up to ten minutes.

After a few hours and many gallons of beer - the abuse and the banter with the Aussie crowd picked up.  The Barmy Army dominated proceedings, and while some  Aussies jovially took them on (‘I’d rather be a convict than a pom’, or ‘stick your union jack right up your arse’) they were quickly drowned out.  Of course, the humiliation England have suffered after a long, painful tour provided much material for Australia who won the Ashes in the first 11 days.  However, following the recent decision of the MCC in London that the centenary-plus Ashes Urn is too delicate to travel; (much quieter) songs about Aussie cricketing prowess, were retorted with the truth that (much louder) "you'll never see the Ashes!"

Other abusive chants included the old classic 'he's got the whole world in his hands' morphed into "we get three dollars to the pound," which is followed in turn by,  "we're so rich its unbelievable." There’s also, "there are only 3 Aussies singing," "get your shit stars off our flag" and as the runs piled on, "you’re not singing anymore." To the tune of 'Yellow Submarine’, they finished the job with, "you all live in a convict colony!"  All songs repeated over and over all afternoon as the sun beat down.

It wasn't just the Aussie crowd that came in for taunts, there was plenty saved up for the Aussie bowlers as England uncharacteristically piled on the runs.  Fast bowler, Brett Lee has been known for a dodgy bowling action in his time, and so the army intimidated him with chants like, "keep your arm straight when you bowl," and, "shall we show you how to bowl."  As he ran up to the crease over and over again, the crowd shouted each time, hundreds in unison, "no ball!"

Jimmy Saville was not the only celeb to be represented, and four blokes in particular stood out - three dressed as crocodile-wrestling Aussie TV cult star, Steve Irwin, and one as his pet crocodile.  Drawing most attention though were girls dressed in a variety of St George's cross-inspired bikini tops, who I understand are paid 45 quid an hour to keep the beer coming.

The day's highlight came shortly after lunch, not on the pitch but actually 10 seats to our left.  Barmy Army hero, Jonathon Agnew - 'Aggers' - the English commentator working for the ABC and BBC, came down with his crew to do a recording from the very heart of Barmy Army territory.  This sparked fervent singing, mainly of, "Aggers, Aggers, give us a song".  Perhaps more embarrassing for him, and his female producer, was the rendition of, "is she really going out with him, is she really gonna take him home."

Aggers sat down and got someone to teach him the Army anthem, before standing up to lead the Army in its war cry.  Photos and autographs a plenty proved a happy highlight for a crowd of supporters that have obviously had a lot of fun, but actually have had very little to cheer about from a cricketing perspective...until, that is, the fourth day of the Sydney test.

By late afternoon, England had scored another 200 runs and set a target of 452 for an Australian side that hadn’t lost a home test in four years.  This reality was not lost on opening batsman Mathew Hayden, who smashed a dressing room window in disgust after his two run dismissal.  After Declaring, and much to the amazement of the Barmy Army themselves, what Aussies described as ‘Hussain’s weapons of misdirection’ took the three Australian openers’ wickets inside just one hour, making an Australian victory all but impossible. 

Aussie captain, Steve Waugh - who became only the third Australian to score 10,000 career runs on the second day of Sydney - said before the match that he wanted a 5-0 whitewash, and now the Barmy Army had a simple response.  To the tune of ‘she’ll be coming round the mountain,’ thousands sang: "you can stick your 5-0 right up your arse." 

They won the test the next day by 225 runs to finish the series 4-1. www.barmy-army.com"