More oval than The Oval: the straight boundaries are long, the square ones short

another foretaste of the future, a game of Australian Rules football was staged at the Oval under gaslights. But the sprinkler system is entirely modern, and all too necessary, as Adelaide is the capital of Australia's driest state, and the River Torrens is hardly a river at all, more a placid little lake which has to be dammed so that it does not sink to muddy levels.

From their seats at the front window of the dressing-room, the players are well-placed to observe the belles of Adelaide society

Although new, the Sir Donald Bradman Stand has blended in with the existing architecture and prevailing colour scheme of creamy stands and ochre roofs. It would be refreshing if all four of the stands were named after cricketers, and not just Giffen and Bradman, but that is not the way cricket works anywhere, so two otherwise anonymous administrators have been commemorated, rather than Clarrie Grimmett and Ian Chappell. Behind these stands, near the practice nets, lie bowling greens and grass tennis courts for SACA members, unless it is Test-match time, when the courts have to accommodate marquees. Herein the material blessings of Australia are eaten and drunk to the full; and if there should be such a person as a cricketer with an eye for the ladies, he, from his seat at the front window of the dressing-room, can observe the belles of Adelaide society appearing from the tunnel underneath the Giffen Stand, then scanning the ground to see and be seen, before tossing their hair and returning to their marquee for another glass of the wine that has been made in the Barossa Valley not one hour away.

Out in the middle the cricketer has more pressing concerns: the unyielding nature of the truest pitch in Christendom – Kanpur and Karachi are in Hindu and Muslim lands – and the angles which are unique on the Test circuit. Adelaide's Oval is far more oval than The Oval, even though the cycle track which caused the peculiar shape has long since been abandoned. So close are the boundaries on either side, and so remote at either end, that a wristy player such as Mark Waugh (who made 138 on his Test debut at this ground) is lavishly rewarded, while a straight hit is almost as likely to generate five runs as four. A slow mid-on with a weak arm will never be more cruelly exposed than he is here. The South Australians, or Redbacks as we are supposed to call them now, long ago worked out that it was quicker for a second fielder to chase halfway in support and help relay the ball back to the keeper. But you have to retrieve it first, and there have been some fielders who have been beyond the help of even Dervish Belah's training.

 IF IT DOES seem on occasion as though time has stood still at Adelaide Oval, then it may not be a Proustian illusion: the clock on the scoreboard has sometimes stopped when possums have got into its workings and arrested the seven-day pendulum. And even when the clock does work, the scoreboard itself is so old – and 1911 is ancient by the standards of white Australia – that more than anything else on the ground it contributes to the timeless feel. If an older scoreboard is used on any first-class ground, I do not know of it, although there is still the one on the Hill in Sydney, standing in useless retirement behind its successor, preserved by government order as a heritage site, like Adelaide's.

Internal phones link the scoreboard operators to the scorers, and no-smoking signs are numerous, but otherwise little has changed inside this box since England won the Ashes series of 1911–12. The name of every player in the match is still decked out in white letters on boards six feet long, whether Barnes or Larwood, Lillee or Gough. When the 11 names are put up, they span the four floors which are used inside the scoreboard (the fifth has been closed), besides evoking a century of history. At change of innings it is bedlam, as all 22 names have to be shifted from one side to the other: 6½ minutes is claimed as the record. Yet only four people are required to operate the board for a Shield game, five for a Test, and six for a one-day match, compared with 15 for the one at the MCG (or so The Oval guide claims), and that is supposed to be electronic.

Mr Justice Taylor would have had the board shut down, and perhaps burnt down on the spot, if he had been asked to inspect the safety of Australian cricket grounds. It is made of local hard wood, floor after inflammable floor, except for its back, which does nothing to reduce the heat as it is made of tin. Some big batting records have been set at The Oval, but the highest temperature known inside that scoreboard would be equally impressive. The operators wear shorts and singlets as they turn the numbers round on their original cogs and chains. They can only listen to the noise below as spectators queue for the bar on the ground floor of the board, and pull the rings to open their cans.

Still racking them up: Graham Thorpe and Mark Ramprakash pose in front of the venerable scoreboard after their 377 stand

Tradition is further maintained by the last grass hill that has been allowed to remain unconcreted at a Test ground in Australia (we can leave aside the blasted open spaces at the new Bellerive in Hobart); by the wonderful selection of diverse trees near the Victor Richardson Gates, native and imported, from stringy-bark to palm; and by the boards in the dressing-rooms, home and away, which record the major achievements in the many Tests upon the ground (this month's will be the 56th). Bradman's name is naturally prominent among the centurians (sic) for Australia. The first visiting bowler to take five wickets in an innings was the Yorkshire allrounder Billy Bates, in that inaugural Test of 1884–85. It is a miracle that Bates's fate has not been repeated more often since: his career was ruined when he was struck in the eye by a loose ball at practice. Australians were to contribute generously to a fund set up for him in his few remaining years.

 Adelaide– a soft name for a place where the heat and the cricket can be intense – does have one fly in its ointment, or rather three: the retractable floodlights which have been left standing since the accident last March, when the fourth of them suddenly crumbled into rubble, injuring two workmen. Not until the official report has been completed can the remaining floodlights be lowered into the ground, in accordance with the original plan. The only blemish on the world's most beautiful Test ground, in the city designed by Colonel Light, are the lights.

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