This year’s ICC Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup was hosted by Australia and the final was held at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground on International Women’s Day (8 March 2020).
Nadia couldn’t make it (she had a deadline), but I was there with 86,173 other people to watch Australia and India compete for the trophy. (Australia won their fifth title.)
Crowd inside a stadium. A massive screen in the background says: “Attendance 86,174. Australian record!”. A spectator in the foreground has their arms raised as they cheer this announcement.
The MCG is such a fantastic venue for both live sport and music. I enjoy myself immensely every time I go there. (Also, yay for wide angle lenses for smartphones!)
Wide-angle view of the cricket pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground from just behind the seats on the lowest level.
At this match I happened to be seated behind the hundreds of girls who danced with Katy Perry in her fantastic pre-game performance. They were a fun bunch to sit behind: not tall, not rowdy, very enthusiastic, and very dancey. Even if they do look all composed and sober during the national anthems!
A view of the cricket pitch in a stadium. Everyone is standing at their seats while the national anthems play. The seats in front of the photographer are occupied by hundreds of young girls wearing all-purple sports/dance outfits.
My favorite nearby spectators, however, were these siblings. The little girl was particularly thrilled with Australia’s batting performance, pumping her fists or raising her 4/6 boundary sing every time a batter scored a boundary. In the second innings her brother joined in on the standing-and-cheering action as well.
The section I was in was mostly full of Aussie supporters, but there were a few pockets of India fans dotted about the place as well. We also had the inevitable Indian-Aussies who’d brought both flags with them.
There are pros and cons to watching a match at the venue as opposed to on the TV at home.
One of the pros of being at the stadium is that you get to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Watching the Spidercam zipping around doing its thing, for example. And checking out the staff as they do their jobs: like these security guards (who didn’t have much to do since the crowd was so fantastic) and the crew pulling advertising decals off the ground while Katy Perry’s roadies prepare her stage in the background after the match was over.
Arguably the best thing about watching a match in a stadium, however, is that you get to participate in a Mexican wave with eighty six thousand other people :)