Cricket

The World XI has come to Australia to play the world champions - and how did that work out? It was a fantastic match, if you are an Australian supporter - We ended up making 8/255, a little below what they were on target for at the 20 over mark (around 280-300!), but it ended up being too much for the World XI, who struggled to get to 150. Shane Watson with 4 wickets was man of the match, and Brett Lee did another fantastic job with the bat, whacking 26 of 17 at the end of the innings. He's becoming a bit of a specialist slogger down the order.

The crowd seemed very disappointing, maybe 12-15,000 in, but seeing as it was a work day, it's probably too much to expect to have 30-40,000 in. Hopefully Friday and Sunday's matches will have big crowds, to get some good atmosphere going in the Dome. It looked a bit slippery (the affliction not only affecting footballers!), and the ground was very slow in some patches - with well hit straight drives stopping dead on the patchy outfield.

We batted very well, Katich a good move up the order, but Damien Martyn must be wondering (like the rest of us!) what happened to his great form of 12 months ago. It seems like only the other day he was is career best form, and we were all talking about how he could have been left out of the side for 6 years after the devastating loss to South Africa in the early 90's.

The fielding was still a bit shonky, with a drop each from Shane Watson, and Brett Lee - Katich also dropped a difficult chance at mid on - although he was running with the flight of the ball, which is never easy to do. Glenn McGrath was superb as usual, his first 7 overs going for 10 runs, and a wicket. You would think that someone who seems to bowl on the same spot all the time, who isnt express, would be a real target - As a batsman, if you know where the ball is going to land, why wouldn't you just try to step back and whack it?

Sangakarra was good, although he was gifted a life early on (by the Katich drop), he went on to make a respectable 60-odd, and when he was out, that was about 60% of the runs for the team. Unfortunately no other batsmen really decided they wanted to stay out there.

I managed to get an early train this morning, mostly thanks to Scully who woke me up about 5:30 - It was geting light, so I decided to get up anyway. This should get me to flagstaff around 7:40 or so, and I'll be able to get stuck into the work I've got to do, unless of course the machine I normally use has been taken/upgraded. I'm hoping not.