A day at the cricket usually is a great day out. A day at the cricket with your father celebrating both yours and his birthday? Well, what more could you ask for? The stage was set for a great day of cricket in my first time experiencing cricket at Adelaide Oval. I have watched football there before, but this is what the ground is designed for. We were not able to sit next to each other, though we were able to sit three rows apart but directly in line with each other. That meant that I had to lean over a gentleman between us when I was relaying food and or beverages to him. The guy did not mind and we actually made a connection as they were part of a veterans cricket club who go on tours to watch Australian matches from time to time.
The toss was won by Australia and opted to bat first and it was a slow start and hard going from an out of form Usman Kawaja, but a gritty 82 was what he was sorely looking for to try and inject some life into what is possibly his final test series. This was after the Australian top order had failed to fire with the Travis Head and Jake Weatherald experiment failing to make the impact it was touted to deliver. Marnus Labuschagne came and went for 19 and looking very shaky with his position coming into question over a series of poor results.
Alex Carey defied his usual self by actually sticking around and eeking out a gritty century in front of his home crowd until he departed late in the days play. Starc stuck around and the tail did wag, causing much frustration to the English bowlers who just could not get on top and dominate the hosts. Joffra Archer looked threatening at times but sadly this whole tour so far has been somewhat of a let down for the English quick bowler. I was hoping to see the 2019 magic, or something awfully close to it as he has bounced back from his injury woes that have plagued him for a few years now.
Carse did niggle and was a threat, but it was just tired and incorrect unforced error shot selections that would gift England their wickets. This is something that the Australians really do need to concentrate on as it can and has cost them dearly when it comes to more tougher opponents, such as India when they are in Australia and in India where they give absolutely no favours to the Australians; unlike what we do when they tour here. Australia at stumps on day one were 8 wickets down for 326.
Now I should talk about the food shouldn't I? It is after-all, the whole point of the blog, it is what the fans 'want' ha-ha. Now admittedly I did have some food packed with me as it was a sell-out at Adelaide Oval and I thought that it would be a complete headache to make my way down to the stalls to purchase food and drinks. Though I was expecting to go down for drinks as we did not pack anything in that regards for drinks and hydration.
However, after our packed supplies were consumed, rather quickly I might add as it was a rather warm day at the cricket, I ventured to buy more food for myself and for my dearest father. The bottles of coke were 7 dollars, getting rather ridiculous to be honest. But I do sound like a broken record there, so that is all I will say there. Then we move onto the hot chips. Now they were rather nice and delicious. They were hot and nicely salted. Did not need to have any sauces to kill any of the tastiness of the salt and had a great crunch to them. The portion was great and I had some and Dad had the rest of them. The chips were similar priced at 8 dollars and that wasn't too bad given what I have said about them prior.
I decided to buy some iced coffee at the same price as the coke and while it was 500mL, it is also rather steep and really should not be priced at this level either. But this is a sporting venue and Australia, where we love to gouge our visitors, so this is par for the course really. I did not really need to buy this one as I was already rather full, however, I wanted to try it as it was a local brand and seemed not too bad to have while watching the day's events play out.
Later on in the day I had bought myself a burger and it was not too bad, It had bread that felt soft and fresh with the beef patty tasting not bland or too dry. But not too juicy or succulent, so it was well done as they say. The lettuce and mayonnaise was nice and the pickles tasted nice to create that offset of flavour with the contrast in tanginess in the burger. I had a light swirl of sauce to not over-power the burger which was a nice touch. The burger was at 16 dollars, so it was a bit on the high side due to the burger's size. But all in all it was a rather tasty burger. The sprite was the same price as the coke at 7 dollars.
Rounding it off was an ice-cream that I had as I went for a bit of a walk around the ground and to the scoreboard priced at 8 dollars. The member's section at the Adelaide Oval effectively takes up one whole half of the venue. The western side and the southern side are all for members. Leaving the eastern stand in where I was with Dad and the northern grassed banks where the scoreboard and the Barmy Army were located.
Now that Adelaide has been ticked off the list of 'traditional' test venues list with Hobart being my last one, it was a great day to watch some test cricket. Was even better to see myself watch not just one Ashes test in the summer, but 2 of them. I was planning to see a third, however, the tickets were sold out and was impossible to have that arranged. Another time as they say. But it was a wonderful day and experience in sunny and very hot Adelaide. Yes it is summer, but the heat has been cranked up to almost maximum as it was very stifling conditions. Hopefully a return to the venue to watch more cricket.
