Roving Reporter
by Steven Lynch at Melbourne
Sunday, December 15, 2002

The Melbourne Cricket Ground was on probation today. Or the crowd was, at any rate. An ICC report had named and shamed the world's worst three grounds for crowd behaviour – and the MCG was right up there with Eden Gardens, Calcutta and the Municipal Stadium, Rajkot.

Stephen Gough, the secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club, was unimpressed, and suggested beforehand that Australia had paid for their outspoken criticism of crowds around the world. Be that as it may, there had been several interruptions at recent one-dayers at the MCG when booze got the better of the boys in Bay 13.

So all eyes were on the more boisterous bits of the Great Southern Stand as play unfolded. It was a baking afternoon – UV and heat warnings were flashed up on the scoreboard almost as often as replays of Adam Gilchrist's exocet boundaries. In those conditions you might have expected a lot of Victoria Bitter – sponsors of this series – to be knocked back, leading to trouble later.

It wasn't a good sign when the first Mexican Wave rip-curled out after only 20 minutes. And after an hour and a half there was a spot of beach-ball action (when a big ball is ping-ponged to and fro until the spoilsport policeman deflates it).

First to defuse the powder-keg was Ronnie Irani. Fresh from his Merv Hughes calisthenics at Sydney, Our Ron soon persuaded Nasser Hussain to station him in front of the noisier element. A spot of by-play and a forward roll, and Irani's status with the locals was officially amended from "wanker" to "legend". They enjoyed his batting (run out 0) even more.

In the past twilight has been the cue for the bad boys to get badder. But today they remembered their manners, although there were wolf-whistles for shapely sheilas and cat-calls for those uniformed killjoys. There were also a couple of streakers (one underpanted, one not), but the outfield remained gratifyingly free of anything that could possibly be termed a missile.

The police were out in force, and tapped a few of the louder revellers on the shoulder from time to time. But there didn't seem to be anything too unpleasant from a slightly disappointing crowd of 34,887.

And just as the match petered out as a contest – another possible flashpoint for the bored and beered-up – came the sobering injury to Shane Warne, the local hero. His awkward fall sprung that priceless right shoulder, and the whole crowd held its breath as Warne was carried off.

Away from the yobwatch the MCG's new look took a little getting used to. A great bite has been taken out of the ground as building works get under way to construct another huge stand – a sister for the colossal Great Southern – in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2006. The Ponsford Stand which flanked the pavilion has been flattened, along with its "dry area" where no beer was allowed (stereotypically, it was almost always comic-book empty). Instead bored spectators can watch the traffic in Brunton Avenue and the trains trundling towards Flinders Street station and its famous clocks.

Next year the ground will be even stranger-looking. The quaint old members' clubhouse itself, and the Long Room with its opulent leather seating, is going – so the Pavilion end will turn into the Building Site end. The members won't have anywhere comfortable to sit. But at least they will have something to watch, as the ground has passed the first visit of the probation officers.

Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden.com.

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