Day/Nighter

When  Aaron and I got married I knew he was sports crazy.  I've come around on the footy, and now I don't mind watching a bit of football and going to Hawks games, but the cricket is a whole other story.  I don't think I'll ever say I love cricket, but when Australia and England were playing a day/nighter in Hobart, I knew that I would have to go down with Aaron, as he has waited forever to see England play cricket live.

Since he was a teenager he has barracked for England  - I know, I know! Yes he's an Aussie, but he has some story about hating a particular Aussie player back in the day, and has followed England ever since.  We booked tickets for us and Jay and Harri to go and watch a month or so ago, and Mum said she could watch Noah and Kobe for us for the day.

We knew it was going to be a long day with driving 2 hours to Hobart and then back again in the same day, plus watching 8 hours of cricket, but I think Mum may have had a longer day than us!   Poor Mum always seems to end up looking after Noah on one of his cranky days. Yesterday was one of those days where he ended up yelling for half the day, and then finally settled down after some morphine and a sleep. Kobe kept Mum busy all day with demanding that she played with him ALL day long. I think he was a little bit excited about having Grandma's undivided attention all day.  I heard that there was a lot of time spent out in the sandpit!

Aaron was like a kid at Christmas.  He couldn't get into the ground fast enough, to see if he could see some English players before the match started.

From Campbell Town to Bridgewater it rained the whole time. Aaron was stressing that the match was going to be called off, while I was stressing that we had driven two hours for nothing and wasted all that time and money! I didn't actually care one way or another whether we got to see the cricket - I was quite happy to spend a couple of hours shopping in Hobart instead! :)  Just as we got into Hobart though, the clouds started disappearing and it was blue skies by the time we found our seats.

We had great seats in the 'Milo family area', three rows from the front.  It was a great spot as no alcohol was allowed in our section and there were a lot of nice people around us.  We did laugh at the 'wet area' on the hill which was very noisy in contrast!

Just in front of where were were sitting was a player fielding all the time.

 

Aaron was worse than the kids, running up to the fence every time an English player would get close, to ask for their autograph.

The boys were great but we weren't keen on watching every single ball that was bowled like Aaron was, so we went to the kids area for a little while .  There was a jumping castle, face painting and the kids could have a bowl in the cricket nets, while a guy used a speed gun to see how fast they were bowling.

If you bowled the batter out, then you got to have a bat.  Harri fluked it, with one bowl and got a big kid out! All the other kids were so excited and the guy who was running it was like 'wow! go buddy!!'.  He then got to have a bat, and faced about 5 kids until he was caught out. He was so excited and still keeps saying 'Mum, do you remember when I got that big kid out at cricket!!?'.


Harri's idol is Aaron, so of course he has decided that England is the team to go for, so he was excited to show Aaron that he got an English flag facepainted on.

Overall the game was pretty boring (just because I'm not a fan of cricket) but there was some action to liven things up every now and then.

The boys LOVED the beachballs that were hit around the crowd all the time.  Jay was waiting all day for one to come near us, and was so happy at the end of the night when he actually got his hands on one, and got to hit it back up into the crowd.

At the tea break there was some entertainment for everyone with people racing in the blow ups which was very funny.

Aaron's favourite player is Kevin Pietersen.  He waited all day for him to come out and bat, and this was the only ball he faced! He was out for a duck!!

Aaron's face said it all! He said it was just as bad as the time that Geelong kicked a point at the end of a game between Hawthorn, to win by a point.

It was a windy day, but while the sun was out it was okay. As soon as it went down it was freezing and it felt like we were at a footy match in the middle of footy season! We all had to put our jumpers on, snuggle under blankets, and got a hot chocolate to try to get warm! Even then we were still freezing.  I spoke to Mum to see how the boys were, and she told me she was at home with all the windows open and the blinds down, as it was so hot!

The last couple of hours was pretty fun to watch (usually the only time I like watching it on TV as well), with it being a close match in the end.

After each over and between players coming on, they play music which kept the crowd entertained.  They would play funny things like 'if you are happy and you know it, clap your hands' and then the crowd would clap their hands, or the Chickendance and all the crowd would do the actions.
The funnest thing though was doing the Mexican Wave. Jalen thought it was fantastic - especially when it would hit the seats where it would slow down and die off and the whole crowd would 'boo' them!

After the match (Australia bowled them out and won), we hung around for a bit as Aaron was keen to see if he could see some more players.  He was very excited to get the English Captain's autograph (Andrew Strauss) before he went off to do a press conference. We could see him right through the windows! I really felt like a papparrazzi!

It was a long day and we didn't get home till 1.30 am, but overall it was fun and I was glad that Aaron got to see his team play live.  Jalen said towards the end 'this is actually pretty fun!' as I think he was as surprised as I was about it.  I still don't think I will ever say I love cricket, but it was fun to go and watch a day/nighter and be a part of the atmosphere.