Melbourne Stars are Scorched by Perth

Ventured to the Western Australian Cricket Association Ground, also known as #THEFURNACE to the fans more akin to this form of the game, twenty twenty cricket. Perth Scorchers batted first and they had a rather sluggish start. Former Western Australian player Michael Beer cause some trouble early on by taking an early vital wicket to put Perth under enormous pressure. It was looking like the innings would conclude earlier than the allotted 20 overs and therefore a quick chase.

However, that was not to be the case and the home side dug themselves out of trouble and put on a respectable total. Cartwright and Voges built up a healthy partnership with Voges making 35 and then leaving Cartwright to make 58 with a healthy contribution of 33 from Agar gave the Scorchers a total of 6 for 142.

The Stars just never found a rhythm that could see themselves to mount a serious threat with the bat. Tye was his devastating best in t20's with 5 Melbourne scalps crippling the visitors run chase. Bowling from the Scorchers was tidy and worked well in tandem with Tye as they mounted the pressure at the other end to force the visitors into playing risky shots to force a change in tempo.
Melbourne ended short with 8 wickets for 129 off the full 20 overs.

The food and drink of course is why I am here and as usual food at the WACA is flirting with the "dont bother" category, due to the prices. However, through my travels of the United States, it seems that it is relatively on par. Venues tend to gouge their patrons for the sake of food and drink.

Beers were 9 dollars and were full strength as I must disclose that I was in the member's enclosure. Food was a bit on the nose with a burger at 9.50 and ice-cream at 5 dollars, which is a joke. Burger was nice but it was just plain cheeseburger style so nothing to go crazy about. I was also a bit hungry after and bought some chips and they were 4 dollars too. But the packet is the larger version so it kind of made up for the high price tag.

The ground is a neat little cricket club-style venue that offers a fantastic venue to watch cricket with the backdrop of Perth, East Perth and Burswood surrounding it. It will be a shame when this venue eventually goes as they will move games to the newer Perth Stadium across the river.

Newcastle Shoot Down Glory

Perth Glory played host to Newcastle United Jets on a warm December evening. Once again I refrained from making any food purchases as they are through the roof and are a complete racket. However, after a long day at cricket I was thirsty so I did succumb to buying a bottle of Pepsi which is now 5.50! So I must try and avoid that temptation when I am at the ground in the future.

Perth scored first and were playing not too badly. They were not dominating, nor were they overly shaky. However, you just knew that something would go dramatically wrong. Watching Perth Glory is like watching a dangerous nuclear reactor. You know it will explode, or meltdown at any given moment. The only problem is you dont know why, how and when it will occur. When it does, it leads to spectacular results with the catastrophic fallout that ensues.

The Perth defence just did exactly that and exploded, giving Newcastle an equaliser and it just went from bad to worse. Shoddy defending, woeful passing, average set pieces just resulted in Perth turning into a lame donkey that was going to be shot and put out of its misery. It was a drawn out, painful, depressing and sad sight to behold. Newcastle then scored the winner through shocking defending from the hosts. The game ended at 2-1 to Newcastle and yet another 3 points thrown away into the wind.