Final T20 International
On Sunday 25th
June Shane had arranged tickets for a gang of us to go to the SWALEC Stadium in
Cardiff to see the final T20 cricket international between England and South
Africa.
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| The SWALEC Stadium from the ait |
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| Match day ticket |
I picked up
Richard at 11.00am and we both then waited at my house to be picked up by Kevin
and Christine. They arrived bang on time
at 11.30 and we headed off to Cardiff to meet the others in The Cricketers Arms
in Cathedral Road. Christine dropped us off
and after making pick up arrangements left us to our own devices. We settled in and bought a couple of drinks
and waited for the others.
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| The Cricketers, Cardiff |
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| Inside The Cricketers |
Gradually they
all started drifting in so we arranged a group of tables outside where about 16
of us spent the time before moving into the stadium next door for the cricket.
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| Richard and Dan |
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| A group of us including me and Kevin on the right. The guy pulling the face is Tom |
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| Richard and Scott |
A few of us had
lunch here and it was really good for all of us bar Tom who sent two meals back
before reluctantly taking delivery of the third one. When he started
complaining to the nice waitress he got it right back from her. She was taking
none of it from him and won the war of words hands down.
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| Our lovely waitress |
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| Add caption |
Soon we left to
take our seats in the Stadium and settled down to watch the match.
England batted first and soon lost Jason Roy but they batted particularly well to post a total of 181 for 7 in the allotted 20 overs. This total was helped by some poor fielding and dropped catches by the visitors.
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| England batting |
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| A dropped catch by South Africa |
Newcomer David Malan batted particularly well in his first international and was rightly made man of the match.
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| Malan being congratulated by Alex Hales on reaching his 50 |
During the interval
between innings we went down into the refreshment area and had a drink and a
snack before heading back up to our seats.
We had not realized it but the South Africa Innings had started before
we reached our seats and indeed they had lost heir first wicket. England
continued to bowl well particularly two other newcomers, Mason Crane and Tom Curran.
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| South Africa in batting |
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| In front of packed stands |
South Africa were eventually bowled out for 162
leaving England winners by 19 runs and winners of the three-match tournament.
At the close we
slowly made our way out of the ground amid the large crowd and made our way out
onto Cathedral Road where Christine was waiting for us outside the Cricketers again. Then we were on the road heading out of
Cardiff on the way back to Newport.
