BBL - Thunder vs Strikers at Manuka

The BBL came to Manuka Oval for a pre Christmas game. Ella's team, the Sydney Thunders were up against the Adelaide Strikers. Andy invited one of his colleagues Navid who grew up in Cyprus and had never experienced a cricket match to come along. Also joining us was Rob and Mira plus a friend of Ella's - Lily.

It was a scorcher of a day with the mercury reaching 41°C! Luckily for us the clouds came in so by the time we arrived at the oval just after 6pm, the 35°C was bearable until the sun found a gap in the clouds! Andy began educating Navid on the technicalities of the game. Listening to their exchange made me realise how much of a weird game it is with so, so many rules!

The Thunder won the toss and elected to bowl. At the end of the innings, Strikers were 5/161. When the girls weren't eating, they spent most of their time up behind our seats in the Mazda Zoom Zoom tent playing cricket!!

The evening was cooling down as the Thunder's batting began. Disaster in the first over when Khawaja was caught by first slip for a duck!! Katy and I decided to head to the toilets before the game got too exciting. We emerged a few minutes later to find thick smoke had rolled in. As we sat down, we heard from Andy and the others how they watched the smoke front come in and blanket the oval.

It was difficult to see the umpires and players on the ground but obviously there was concerns about the current playing conditions as play suddenly halted. Just after 9pm, the match was officially abandoned due to the poor air quality and low visibility. For a cricket game to be valid, a minimum of 5 overs need to be bowled and unfortunately only 4.2 overs had been bowled. Thus the outcome of the game was a no result. It was a real pity that Navid wasn't able to fully appreciate the whole game. Perhaps we will mange to convince him to join us for another BBL match in January.