Twenty20 - Australia vs India

I went to the highly anticipated Twenty20 match between Australia and India at the MCG. With all the controversy surrounding the Indian tour, there was an expected sell out for the match. As it turns out, it wasn't a sell out but a huge crowd of over 84,000 turned up. I think this may have been more than the first day of the Boxing Day test. And who said Twenty20 is just a gimmick. Well I did, originally. But I am starting to enjoy it. It's played at such a fast pace, but there are tactics involved now.

I went to the match with Keiran. He is an MCC member, so we got to go to all the members areas, which I have never been to. Despite getting to the ground at 6pm (match started at 7:30pm), we still could only manage to get seats up on the fourth level. So we put our jackets around a couple of chairs and headed back out for dinner. We went to the Mount View Pub on Bridge Road for a meal. We both had the Beef Burger, which was really good. After our meal, we hiked back to the G.

The match itself turned out to be a fizzer, with India only scoring about 70 runs, the second lowest score in Twenty20 international history. However, the crowd and atmosphere was still amazing. There was music being played in between balls and the crowd participated by clapping and just making lots of noise. When the action died down, Mexican waves would be started.

The magnificent MCG.

The crowd doing a Mexican wave.

During the break when the teams swapped over, we headed off to see all the various members area. We couldn't get into the Long Room, which looked so classy but you need to be a member to get in. I did get to see all the other members bars and the library. The bars ranged from fairly classy to really plain. The noise in all the bars was really loud and people were drinking away. As I said to Keiran, all the people just want to be seen as you can see the game better from your seat. It's all part of being elitest and separating yourself from the "average Joe". Now how do I get in. :-)

The views of the city from one of the bars was great. This is the photo I took from it. I was like a total tourist with my camera on hand to snap everything.

I had a great time overall, but next time I want to visit the MCG museum as well.