SCG: field of dreams and a nightmare

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Sydney

IT is the ground where SA found a way to defend 117 to win a test by five runs, where they beat Australia by nine wickets in their first World Cup match, where Allan Border once took 11 wickets, where Donald Bradman made his highest first-class score - 452 not out - where the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks got the 2014 Major League Baseball seasons started, and the only place West Indies lost two tests during the 1980s.

The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is also where cruel rain rules drowned SA’s chances of winning the 1992 World Cup semi-final against England, where Hashim Amla bowled with a distinctly suspect action in SA’s tour match in November, 2012, and, on November 25 last year, where Phil Hughes was felled by a bouncer that led to his death two days later.

It is home to the “SCG Media Hall of Honour”, which counts among its members legends of the field and the pressbox like Richie Benaud, Jack Fingleton and Bill O’Reilly. Which is odd, because the Sydney Morning Herald devoted a solitary sentence to the first game of cricket it covered there, on February 16, 1854: “This match came off on Thursday, on the ground at the back of the Victoria Barracks, and excited unusual interest.”

Unlike the misnamed Melbourne Cricket Ground, the SCG is actually a ground - not a stadium. At least, it was until redevelopment begun in 2012 left the Members Pavilion and the anachronistically named Ladies Pavilion as the only relics of character still standing.

Sydney Cricket Ground ODIs - 146 (January, 1979 - January, 2015)

Highest total: 368/5 (Australia v Sri Lanka - February 12, 2006)

Lowest total: 63 (India v Australia - January 8, 1981)

Highest score: Andrew Symonds 151 (Australia v Sri Lanka - February 12, 2006)

Best bowling: Greg Chappell 5/15 (Australia v India - January 8, 1981)