Published: Feb 22, 2015, 04:56 PM (IST)
Edited: Feb 22, 2015, 08:07 PM (IST)
Melbourne Cricket Ground is cricket stadium that resembles the coliseum. It can accommodate over 100,000 fans, so to find the best seat in the house is as difficult as trying to track someone in the crowd. ICC Cricket World Cup 2015: Full Coverage
For a Test match the members start lining up from the wee hours of the morning for perfect seat, right behind the bowlers arm in the members stand. Then there is Bay 13, the section in the bottom of the Southern Stand that is renowned for the rowdiness, racist comments, drunken behaviour and vociferous chant of that ends with a word rhyming with tanker.
Then there is the famous seat in the 3rd tier of the Southern Stand which is in a different colour because it symbolises the longest six hit at the cricket ground.
The rest of the seats might not have such connotation but every seat certainly absorbs the spectator. But then there are the seats at the very end of the top deck.
When you take a elevator to the 4th deck, you then need to climb over 100 steps. By the time you reach the half way mark, you start breathing heavily and as you look back, each of the spectators slowly starts appearing in your peripheral vision.
As you sit right behind the bowlers arm you have an immaculate bird eye view of the pitch in front with players sprawled across like ants. It is a warm evening in Melbourne, so there is no need for a sweater or a jacket. Few members of the crowd are still carrying their beers and sipping on them through sheer exhaustion of climbing up the steps. Most of them have carried a pack of six, knowing going up and down is guide to any person fitness.
Behind the seat, is a glass barrier through which you can get a view of the Melbourne city skyline. Importantly, as a cricket lover you realise the amount of ground a fielder, bowler and batsmen need to run, sprint and walk.
It is difficult to identify the players even if each of their mannerisms as familiar as their names. Your only option is to stare the two electronic boards but sometimes your natural eyesight isn’t even good enough to read the numbers from the scoreboard.
There is something special in that last seat because it offers you a wonderful view as long if like to study the game with a different angle. There is also a sense of sanity and less movement.
Sitting in that seat, you really sense everything special about the MCG. Local Australians can witness it everyday but for an Indian fan, just to experience it from as far as you can, is also a cricketing nirvana.
(Gaurav Joshi is an Indian-born Australian who played with Michael Clarke in his junior days. He coaches and reports for a Sydney radio station. Over the years he has freelanced for Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and is a regular on ABC cricket show Cow Corner. He is the author of the book “Teen Thunder Down Under” – The inside story of India’s 2012 U19 World Cup Triumph)
