The Sri Lankan fans turned up in their thousands at the MCG on Friday and luckily for Cricket Australia they did.
A crowd figure of 27,461 to watch stand-in Aussie skipper George Bailey’s so-called “B team” go around, with several stars being rested, was slightly better than some critics had predicted.
But it wasn’t great in such a huge stadium on a hot summer night.
The fans supporting the visiting team weren’t turned off by Sri Lanka’s playing uniforms that made them look like a suburban basketball team, complete with yellow singlets over blue t-shirts.
Sri Lanka lost by 107 runs, their first defeat in four ODI matches at the MCG.
A highlight for fans of both sides came late in Sri Lanka’s innings when a tattooed, topless male intruder wearing a pair of white footy shorts ran all the way to the pitch and bowled a tennis ball down the wicket, to the delight of the fans.
The “Kiss-cam” couples shown on the video scoreboard also briefly kept the crowd entertained.
Only three times in Australia’s past 10 ODI games at the MCG has the crowd figure been below 25,000 and officials at least managed to avoid a fourth incident.
Cricket Australia’s decision to rest dynamic opener David Warner, wicketkeeper Matt Wade on his home ground at the MCG and in-form skipper Michael Clarke has attracted howls of protest from host telecaster the Nine Network.
Australia’s top-order trio Phil Hughes (112), Aaron Finch (16) and Usman Khawaja (three) were all on debut and while the Victoria product Finch flopped, Hughes gave a brilliant display of shot-making as he plundered a century on debut to become the first Australian to achieve the feat.
Cricket Australia’s “Summer’s biggest dress up party” theme inspired plenty of Superman and Wonder Woman creations but the overwhelmingly popular costume of the day was simply a blue shirt with the words “Sri Lanka” in gold lettering across the front.
Officials will be hoping the strong showing of Bailey’s men on Friday will inspire strong home support at Adelaide Oval in game two on Sunday.
