India land to rest
The Indian team landed in Melbourne from Auckland on Monday night and promptly postponed its optional training schedule from early forenoon to late afternoon the next day. Though the team duly got its business class tickets and had a lesser harrowing journey than it had had travelling from Perth to Hamilton for the match against Ireland, it is two time zones it has to adjust to coming from New Zealand. Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has expressed his displeasure at the poor and stressful travel plans that he and the team faced earlier. “It’s not about the opposition you play at the quarter-final stage. More or less, all the opponents are of same standard. It could have been both advantage and disadvantage playing in New Zealand as our spinners would be ineffective on smaller grounds. But yes, hope to get a decent business class seats so that we are properly rested before our next game,” he said. Incidentally, when the team travelled from Perth to Hamilton, the plane had only 12 business class seats and Dhoni was in the economy class window seat where he spent time sleeping through the 14-hour hopping air and road journey.
Skies will bleed blue
It was earlier being predicted that there would be a fair amount of rain on match day at Melbourne where India would be playing their Q/F against Bangladesh on March 19. However, one can now breathe easy as the weather docs have since revised their forecast to suggest that the skies over the MCG would be clear and bleeding blue like, perhaps the rest of the stadium. It’s all clear and at 32 degrees perfect weather condition to play cricket.
Big & fast
As soon as you land in Melbourne, you feel the difference, the big vs small difference, the stroll vs pace difference. You zip through freeways at an essential speed of 100 km/hr as opposed to the never above 80 and even lesser km/hr in New Zealand. The MCG stares you down with its bigness and its imposing presence. The biggest ground in NZ has half the capacity of MCG at 40,000. The shortest boundary in Kiwi country is 43 meters! The boutique grounds, with the smallest one having a capacity of just 2,000, also make it necessary for bowling units to change their plans. So Mohammad Shami and others would be heaving a sigh of relief now that they are back in environs where they can pitch the ball up and indulge in variations when they play Bangladesh on March 19.
City on fast track
Melbourne is yet again sold out. If it was the white night the last time, it is the Formula 1 this time round that has left no room for unscheduled visitors to this constantly happening city. The races are scheduled for the next fortnight and local hero Daniel Ricciardo driving Red Bull is plastered all over Flinder’s Street, the hub of Melbourne. The F1 track in Melbourne is actually a busy road on days when the race is not happening, used as it is by general traffic. Spreading over the green and beautiful stretch of St Kilda, the F1 circuit here is quite picturesque and the place to be.