To get to Adelaide Oval from the citys south,you cross the river Torrens. Normally,this entails a walk up a bridge. On Wednesday evening,an enterprising pedal-boat operator ferries a group of Indian journalists across. Im not going to wish the Indians best of luck for the game, he says. Only Tendulkar. Four Test venues into the country,the Adelaide Oval is easily the most picturesque. St. Peters Cathedral pokes its spire over the nautical-looking roofs of the Chappell stand,and grassy banks bask in the sun either side of the ground. The WACA has grassy banks too,but they only mildly offset the venues vaguely industrial feel,with its giant light towers and camper-van-esque media tent. The grassy banks at Adelaide are vast,right behind the bowlers arm and shaded by a thatch of fig trees. There is a greater connect to the outdoors than in other Australian grounds,so much so that a middle-aged group of four park a limousine on one of the banks and step out. Lovely,isnt it? one of them remarks as we stroll past. Easily accessible Despite the idyllic surrounds,the Oval is still only a two-minute walk from the central business district. As are most of the Test grounds in Australia,in contrast to the recent trend in India of state associations constructing shiny new stadiums on the edge of the highway,an hours drive from the city. Its hard to imagine that happening in Australia. Sport is central to the countrys culture,not just in spirit but geographically too. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Melbourne. A birds eye view would place the MCG right in the middle,ringed by Yarra Park,with the city encompassing it like a pizza,the high-rises of the business district forming one slice and sprawling suburbs comprising the remainder. Getting to and from the stadium is an experience,whichever angle you approach or leave from. At night,Yarra Park can get a little spooky,filled as it is with vaguely threatening bandicoot-like creatures. Equally spooky is the walk to Federation Square across the futuristic William Barak footbridge,usually deserted at night and silent except for the strains of music from each of the Commonwealth nations,a different language emanating from each speaker you walk past,all of them meshing together to form a haunting whole. From the top of the bridge,you see not just the MCG but also the National Tennis Centre and Rod Laver arena. The MCG is the centrepiece of all this. Appropriately,it houses grand statues not just of cricketers but also of Australian rules footballers and track and field athletes,a reminder that this ground hosted the 1956 Olympics. The Sydney Cricket Ground has statues too,but they are smaller and less showy than those at the MCG. And their resemblance to the characters they depict is less consistent. Stan McCabe,playing his famous hook,is frozen at the point where bat meets ball. Instead of defying Harold Larwood and Bodyline,however,McCabe seems to be trying desperately to unglue a ball stuck to his bat with some sort of miracle adhesive. But this unintentional hilarity lends the SCG a charm that the bigger,more intimidating MCG lacks. Instead of the larger grounds shiny corridors and subterranean levels reminiscent of an airport terminal,the SCG wears a happier and more lived-in sort of look. The ground itself,with the sweeping roofs and Roman-numeralled clock on the members stand,is still more or less a ground. The MCG,where spectators on the top tiers get dizzying views of pinprick fieldsmen,is most definitely a stadium - a colosseum,in fact. Parts of it have moved elsewhere,such as the old scoreboard that now sits in the Manuka Oval in Canberra. Its hard to imagine how the MCG would have looked in 1877,when it staged the very first Test match. The SCG,having just hosted its 100th Test,retains some sort of spiritual link to its early days. Not that it is resistant to change. A statue of Yabba hollers out from one of the front row seats at the Trumper stand,but the grassy banks on the 'hill that the much-loved barracker occupied are now long gone. The older stands,the Bradman,the Messenger and the 1936-vintage MA Noble,are all set to be replaced by a new,space-age pavilion,at a hefty cost. Sweeping change is afoot at the Adelaide Oval too,in the form of a $535 million redevelopment. Apart from a rise in seating capacity to around 50,000 and the loss of one of the grassy mounds,it will also entail a curious process known as ovalising. Ovalising is necessary in order to be able to accommodate a variety of sports and be more competitive nationally and internationally, says the Adelaide Oval website. The ovalising of the field will create a playing surface that is consistent with the SCG and Telstra Dome. For cricket fans,this essentially means that the grounds one-of-a-kind shape,with the famously short square boundaries and the longest straight boundaries in the world,will give way to a more generic configuration. The unstoppable march of standardisation.
