mgpcpastor's blog

The second test of the Ashes series is on. Some people don’t understand a game which can be played over five days and finish with no result. Some people do. I love the game and all its varied skills. One of the better days of my life was spent at a test match in Brisbane.
My maternal grandfather was not an overly affectionate man. That was something that he held in common with many of his generation. The current trend of grandparents to indulge and spoil their grandchildren was far from his nature. Still, in the absence of a father figure I came to respect and care for him greatly.
He and my grandmother lived some distance away from our family, visiting periodically. One evening, after bed, I heard fragments of a discussion between my parents and he. It was decided that the two of us would attend the first day’s play of a Test Match between Australia and the West Indies at the ‘Gabba’ (short for Wooloongabba, the suburb in which the Brisbane Cricket Ground is located). Sleep did not come easily and I awoke the next morning to learn again that I would not be going to school that day but would be going to my first ever game of test cricket. I was twelve.
We took our seats in the Leslie Wilson stand, (now demolished) and watched the day’s play unfold. It was the great Greg Chappell’s first test as captain of Australia. He would go on to score a century (100 runs) in each of Australia’s innings. The Australian bowling attack of Lillee, Thompson, Gilmour and the spinners, Jenner and Mallet (how many Australian school-children nicknamed the wooden hammer they used to drive the stumps into the pitch ‘Ashley’ during the 1970s?)
We saw the West Indies bowled out for an exhilerating 214 runs, and Australia make 94 runs without the loss of a wicket by stumps. Most of the elements of the West Indian team that would soon dominate the sport were there. I was unaware that Michael Holding debuted in this match. Time, maturity, and the experience of the 5-1 series loss they would endure were a formative experience in tempering their natural inclination toward flamboyance.
I learned how to fill out the score card in my ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Cricket Book. (You can read it here.) I learned that attending the game live is less forgiving if you are not watching every ball. (Once sports grounds did not have replay screens.) I learned just how fast the ball really travels from one end of the pitch to the other when bowled with fearsome pace, something that television has never succeeded in conveying.
If there had ever been any doubt, that day cemented my life long love for the sport. It was probably that day that changed something in my relationship with my grandfather, at least from my perspective.
Eleven years later we would go to the cricket again, this time to watch the first day of an Ashes Test against England. His eyesight troubled him, so picking up the ball was problematic. England ground out 198 runs in a full days play, so it was not that exciting either. They went on to handsomely win the Test and the Series. It was not a great time for Australian cricket. Yet the core of the team that would dominate the sport were learning their hard lessons and were growing in skill and determination.
I also remember going to the first day’s play of a couple of Tests in the mid 1990s with two elders from our church, David (who is with the Lord now) and John (who is still here despite his best efforts to be with the Lord).
So, as rain now falls at Lord’s, the players having left the field, my grandfather and one day out are inseparably entwined in my memory. He may never have been able to express much in emotional terms, but in giving me that day he gave me something that we could share, something that brought us together.