ICC IX vs ACC IX, Mexican Waves and more

Is the Mexican Wave Really Appropriate at a Tsunami Relief Cricket Match? That’s the question I found myself asking while at today’s historic cricket match between the ICC‘s “Rest Of the World XI” and the ACC‘s “Asia XI”.

Despite this issue… not really an issue at all, just a question… it was a great day which generated over $14M. A crowd of 70,101 packed the MCG… on a beautiful Melbourne day, to watch some of the world’s best cricketers gather in a spectacle to help people. Good stuff. And the charity doesn’t end there… there’s another match of this type in a few weeks AND there’s there’s an auction of players shirts etc (from today’s match) on ebay – Warnie’s shirt already attracting a $16 million bid.

Then there was the cricket, which in the end was a bit of a one sided affair with ICC ROC XI defeating the ACC XI by 112 runs, but there were highlights aplenty.

Cricketing Highlights

• ROC Batting
• Ponting’s Man-of-the-match effort making 115 off 102
• Cairns making 69 of 47 balls
• Lara getting a half-century (even if it was a bit slow… relatively speaking)
• Asia Bowling
• Muralitharan’s warm welcome to the MCG, a ground and fans he’s probably grown to hate due to a few nasty chucking incidences… sorry, “alleged” chucking incidences
• ROC Bowling
• Warnie’s return to one-day cricket, and him getting a wicket with his second ball
• Steve Waugh taking the feel in place of Brian Lara and getting many oportunities to show that he’s still quite capable in the field despite his official status as “retired”
• Chris Gayle’s efforts in the field… quite impressive
• Asia Batting
• Another warm welcome for Murali
• Ummm… no… gome blank here… can’t think of any others… Asia really needed Tendulka

Non-cricket Highlights

• Watching the poor bastards at the southern-end changing seats after almost EVERY ball when Vettori was bowling thanks to the combination of Left-Rights batsman, and their insistance on getting singles… which meant the sight-screen had to be moved almost EVERY ball… which meant those people sitting where their view became obstucted, had to move to where they could see i.e. where the screen had been just before
• The beach balls which were hit around the crowd were amusing… but the blow-up doll which was knocked about for sometime was very good value
• Getting out of the car-park and home in a mere 30 minutes… a new personal-best

My final highlight from today’s activities… the songs that were played over the PA system when a batsman comes out, or when a bowler begins a spell… some interesting selections, but that’s not really what I’m getting at. These songs, along with some of the great 80’s rock I heard on the radio sitting in traffic trying to get to the cricket (ABC Radio‘s reception left much to be desired in the CBD), made me wonder “What think what song(s) would I chose as my intro theme?”

Some that come to mind, but that I wouldn’t want to lock-in just yet.

• Kick Start My Heart – Motley Crue
• F111 Love Missile – Sigue Sigue Sputnik
• Surfing With The Alien – Joe Satriani
• I Would Love To – Steve Vai
• Twisted – Skunk Anansie

I’ll have to give this some more thought… should probably be a U2 song in there perhaps… but there’s a meme in this.
So…

What song(s) would YOU like playing when you enter a full stadium?