I attended my first ever day of test cricket this year. It was the annual Melbourne test that starts on Boxing Day. This year was against India which was great.  I mean what's not to love about the drumming and dancing from the Indian crowd, the beautiful dark-haired women up on the jumbo screen, and being able to buy pakoras and samosas to wash down with beer?

Spoiler: the match ended on a draw with a few overs to go at the end of the 5th day when the Australian captain said, "We're not getting anywhere, are we?  Let's go get a beer."

I went with my ex-boss, who loves test cricket, still plays one-day cricket, and supposes T-20 is ok to introduce kids to the sport. For those of you from the minor colonies, T-20 - the Big Bash League here, is designed to be done in about 3 hours and encourages many thrilling hits to / over the boundary or batting with no finesse, depending on bias.  My ex-boss retired at 55 shortly after he hired me and I'll never forgive him for leaving me in charge of his motley crew. He loves life, so good on 'im, I suppose.

Boxing Day is the big day, with everyone off work, full of food, and ready for lots of beer and best avoided. It's also a lot more expensive than going later on and the busy holiday schedule meant that we couldn't coordinate until the 4th day. Australia quickly took the last 2 Indian wickets of the first innings and then spent the rest of the day faffing around preferring not to get out than to rack up enough runs to win. The draw meant Australia won the test series.  But even with a 1 1/2 hour rain delay they fit in most of a day's play and they had the next day to catch up.

Turned out we we sitting near the rowdy Aussie section and by late afternoon we had a substantial contingent of Melbourne's finest hanging out and keeping a lid on things. I half thought about moving around to the rowdy Indians who seemed more colourful but they were in the sun and as long as the camera men did their job focusing on the crowd, it was too much effort.

Turns out sitting on your bum all day eating samosas and drinking beer is hard work. Maybe I'll train hard and be ready for next year.