Ashes retained

Like anyone with any interest in cricket I have been keenly following the current England tour of Australia, enjoying the spectacle of  a victorious England team, for once. The Melbourne test, which finished so satisfactorily last night, was played in the magnificent Melbourne Cricket Ground, a 100,000 seater stadium packed to the brim in the early stages of the game, but curiously deserted by Aussies yesterday...

The Melbourne Cricket Ground

Apart from the appeals of the cricket and cricketers, what I particularly admired about the MCG was the field with its beautifully patterned turf, whose lushness stopped so many shots going to the boundary. The groundsmen must be proud to have produced such an immaculate surface, especially with  it also being used for Australian rules football and other sports. The secret, according to the MCG's website, is the sandy substrate on which the turf is grown, and also the fact that the pitch, on which the batting action takes place, is prepared elsewhere and dropped into place before the start of the cricket season, thus ensuring that the sacred square is not damaged by other sports - and not an obstacle to them either.

Now all we need is for England to actually win the series...

Update, 7 January 2011: They did! But the turf at Sydney did not look quite as good as it did in Melbourne.