Dropping the field back to try to give Thomson the strike was not working, particularly when they managed to take twos. At last a sharp piece of fielding by the substitute, Ian Gould, kept Thomson at the business end for the start of a Botham over. But only four were needed to win.
As the ball left the edge of Thomsonâs bat, I thought for a split second it was going through the slips for four. Tavaré dropped the chance, but Geoff Miller, running behind him, took the catch. England had won by three runs.
One of the Australian journalists drawled that it had, âRuined a good finish.âYears later Allan Border told me that the start of that over was the first time he had allowed himself to believe that they might win.
The old ABC commentary box was a really tiny hut amongst the seats, a little behind our position in the top tier of the membersâ stand. Its roof was deliberately low, to avoid impairing the view of too many behind it. I can remember Alan McGilvray emerging at a crouch, desperate for a cigarette after a commentary stint. In the years before I first went there, he would probably have been accompanied by the delightful Lindsay Hassett, the former Australian captain who was an ABC summariser for many years. He was always anxious to get his pipe re-lit, or, as Alan always used to say, âI think he only smokes matches.â
That membersâ stand is no more, as the MCG â âthe Mighty Gâ to many Australians and in particular, Victorians â has become one huge continuous circle of stands, principally, of course, with football in mind. Generally I like more character about any cricket ground, but in the case of the MCG, that is its character â just its sheer vastness.
The Boxing Day Test match having become a tradition, touring Christmases in Australia are always in Melbourne. It may be the height of summer there, but it is extraordinary how many of the Christmases I remember there have been cold. Boxing Day 1998 was a case in point, when not a ball was bowled and I saw spectators in thickBritish warmovercoats. Melbourneâs locals have learned a thing or two.
In 2006, we arrived in the city to find it shrouded in smoke from bush fires burning in the surrounding country after a prolonged drought. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day my hotel window was rattled by hail, and snow was reported in the nearby hills.
Myfirst Christmas there, however, was warm enough for our festivities to be held round the hotel pool after the management had informed us that all their restaurants would be closed for the day. âPeople usually go home for Christmas,â I was told rather aggressively by a receptionist, who evidently wished we would do just that.
Thereafter the press had an ongoing agreement with an excellent French restaurant in the city to open just for us on Christmas Day every four years when we were there. Increasingly over the years players and press have come to have their families with them over this period. That can make it a hard day for those who do not.
On a couple of tours I have taken the opportunity to move on from Melbourne to Adelaide by road. More often, though, I have arrived by air, coming in on the final approach, which takes you right over the Adelaide Oval. When I first saw its distinctive long, narrow shape from the air in 1982, it was almost exactly in the condition it had been 50 years earlier, when the Bodyline series erupted at the height of its controversial progress. The only permanent buildings were the long, red-roofed stand stretching down the western side of the ground and the elaborate old scoreboard on its grassy bank in front of St Peterâs Cathedral.
The ABC and BBC radio boxes were temporary cabins on scaffolding at the Cathedral end, with the Channel Nine television boxes similarly perched on the turf âhillâ at the Torrens River end. It was there that I had to go every day of the 1982 Test to negotiate with the
As the ball left the edge of Thomsonâs bat, I thought for a split second it was going through the slips for four. Tavaré dropped the chance, but Geoff Miller, running behind him, took the catch. England had won by three runs.
One of the Australian journalists drawled that it had, âRuined a good finish.âYears later Allan Border told me that the start of that over was the first time he had allowed himself to believe that they might win.
The old ABC commentary box was a really tiny hut amongst the seats, a little behind our position in the top tier of the membersâ stand. Its roof was deliberately low, to avoid impairing the view of too many behind it. I can remember Alan McGilvray emerging at a crouch, desperate for a cigarette after a commentary stint. In the years before I first went there, he would probably have been accompanied by the delightful Lindsay Hassett, the former Australian captain who was an ABC summariser for many years. He was always anxious to get his pipe re-lit, or, as Alan always used to say, âI think he only smokes matches.â
That membersâ stand is no more, as the MCG â âthe Mighty Gâ to many Australians and in particular, Victorians â has become one huge continuous circle of stands, principally, of course, with football in mind. Generally I like more character about any cricket ground, but in the case of the MCG, that is its character â just its sheer vastness.
The Boxing Day Test match having become a tradition, touring Christmases in Australia are always in Melbourne. It may be the height of summer there, but it is extraordinary how many of the Christmases I remember there have been cold. Boxing Day 1998 was a case in point, when not a ball was bowled and I saw spectators in thickBritish warmovercoats. Melbourneâs locals have learned a thing or two.
In 2006, we arrived in the city to find it shrouded in smoke from bush fires burning in the surrounding country after a prolonged drought. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day my hotel window was rattled by hail, and snow was reported in the nearby hills.
Myfirst Christmas there, however, was warm enough for our festivities to be held round the hotel pool after the management had informed us that all their restaurants would be closed for the day. âPeople usually go home for Christmas,â I was told rather aggressively by a receptionist, who evidently wished we would do just that.
Thereafter the press had an ongoing agreement with an excellent French restaurant in the city to open just for us on Christmas Day every four years when we were there. Increasingly over the years players and press have come to have their families with them over this period. That can make it a hard day for those who do not.
On a couple of tours I have taken the opportunity to move on from Melbourne to Adelaide by road. More often, though, I have arrived by air, coming in on the final approach, which takes you right over the Adelaide Oval. When I first saw its distinctive long, narrow shape from the air in 1982, it was almost exactly in the condition it had been 50 years earlier, when the Bodyline series erupted at the height of its controversial progress. The only permanent buildings were the long, red-roofed stand stretching down the western side of the ground and the elaborate old scoreboard on its grassy bank in front of St Peterâs Cathedral.
The ABC and BBC radio boxes were temporary cabins on scaffolding at the Cathedral end, with the Channel Nine television boxes similarly perched on the turf âhillâ at the Torrens River end. It was there that I had to go every day of the 1982 Test to negotiate with the
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