Spent an enjoyable day at the cricket yesterday in Dubai to see Australia take on "home team" Pakistan. It was hot, the air was dusty outside as we queued to get in and the temps were pushing 40 degrees... a sign that summer is coming. But the queue moved 'reasonably' quickly but its amazing that some people just ignore the queue and walk to the front. I found out that its local custom that men with women and children can do this, but on occaision large groups of Pakistani men would try to push in but the whole queue (Aussies and Paki's alike) would call out and yell until the pushers would slink away... a very odd thing that wouldnt be tolerated in Australia.
Through a metal detector, and into the stadium the chaos of outside gave way to a nicely constructed neat stadium with big sails providing shade to most of the ground. Oddly enough, the only sunny section was the expensive 900 Dhs area. Not surprisingly, it was mostly empty!
We had missed the first ball and Australia were fielding but the pitch was slow and scoring difficult. Some good Aussie catching saw the locals out for 206 but despite this the crowd (95% pro-Pakistan) were very loud and upbeat.
In front of me was a large Pakistani family with Mum & Dad, about 4 kids, Uncles and Aunts and Grand-dad. They all had horns and signs and we had a few laughs with them.
In the evening session, Australia ground out a slow pace to victory and some people were starting to leave early... then Australia lost two quick wickets and the crowd came to life and the chanting didnt stop for ages, but soon enough it died down and as Symonds hit a half century the locals were done for the day.
But Aussie support was there and this video is a section of Aussie fans who tried to compete with the noise with a rendition of Waltzing Matilda.
No comments:
Post a Comment