Cotton-wool clouds and the 3 Test series
The denizens of Darwin were surprised yesterday: the sky, which had been resolutely blue throughout the town's inaugural Test, acquired some clouds
Roving Reporter by Steven Lynch
20-Jul-2003
The denizens of Darwin were surprised yesterday: the sky, which had
been resolutely blue throughout the town's inaugural Test, acquired
some clouds. At first they were just cotton-wool jobs, straight out of
The Simpsons, but towards the end of the second day's play the
sky was uniformly grey. At Derby it would have counted as a fine
summer's day, but at Darwin there were worries that the umps would
go off for bad light.
Even my taxi-driver was fooled by the cumulative cumulo-nimbus.
"Those clouds are too high for rain," he pronounced, in a fine
impersonation of Michael "No Hurricane" Fish. "It never rains here in
July. We might get a shower or two in September, then the rainy
season really starts in October."
But there's an unwritten rule of cricket which states that when you put
on a Test match you get rain too. At Bulawayo a few years ago a long
drought was broken by the deadly double of staging a Test and
getting Dickie Bird to umpire it. The Bird option isn't available any
more, although it was rather a surprise not to find him somewhere in
the Marrara Oval, dabbing his eyes and telling the one about his dad
walking from Barnsley to Leeds every day to watch The Don.
Anyway it did rain, during the night. Briefly. For about three or four
minutes, shocked Darwinians reported. It probably constituted half the
town's annual average rainfall for July, which is one measly millimetre. The third day, though, dawned cloudless as Bangladesh resumed their hopeless struggle.
On the field some arcane television regulation ensured that the
sponsors' logos, which had been placed in the conventional position
behind the wicketkeeper at both ends, had been blotted out and
repainted at the sides of the square. After a change of sponsor for
Australian Tests this year that means there is a giant figure 3 at cover and midwicket. It looks a bit like the ever-expanding Merv Hughes has left his one-day shirts to dry on the outfield.
The new sponsors are Hutchison 3G, a telecommunications company,
and the big 3 is their corporate logo. This means, confusingly, that this is the 3 Test series, even though there are only two actual Tests in it. Later this year Australia take on Zimbabwe in another two-Test 3 Test series. And that's followed by the 3 Test series against India, which actually contains four matches. It will be a relief when 3 finally get a three-Test series, but that won't be until next year at least. In the meantime watch out for the second 3 Test at Cairns ...
Neatly, this 3 Test is going to end on the third day, which means a
couple of days of sightseeing for the teams and the accompanying
media circus, which includes six journalists from Bangladesh, most of
whom are valiantly searching for new slants on the phrase "lost by an
innings". It's a shame, though, that Darwin's cricket lovers are being
slightly short-changed - the whole town has welcomed these strange
white-clad visitors, and the weather is so perfect for cricket (the
occasional cloud excepted) that it's a wonder no-one thought of playing
up here before. It's probably a good time to make your reservations for
next July, when Sri Lanka will be here.
Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.