Top 3 Things I Miss About Australia: 3 – Cricket

Although the Ashes were not as competitive as one would have liked, and until the last week, nor have the one-day internationals been, I do miss going to the cricket and watching it on TV. Sure, I can follow the scores on BaggyGreen (and I do – I’m actually following the Australia/NZ game as I’m writing this – NZ just made 290), but it doesn’t compare to seeing the action on TV, or actually being at the Adelaide Oval. And it’s not just the cricket that I’ve missed, also other sports over summer, like the Australian Open and Jacob’s Creek Tour Downunder, which is held in Adelaide. And of course the Cricket World Cup is coming up in March in the Carribean. I think I’ll have to get friendly with someone who has UBC Sports (cable sports). Probably a lot of pubs in the city will broadcast the World Cup, but that’s too inconvenient every night. Luckily ABC’s Asia Pacific TV channel, Australia Network, provided coverage of AFL (and Rugby) in 2006, including a live broadcast of the AFL Grand Final. Lets hope they provide similar or even expanded coverage in 2007. And fingers crossed that ABC gets access to some summer sports action in 2007/08. Despite missing the cricket, there are still some opportunities to see some local sport in Thailand. I wrote about Sepaktakraw before – of course football/soccer is also big here. Tonight, Thailand play Singapore in Bangkok for the ASEAN Football Championship. Singapore won 2-1 in their home leg last week, and tonight is the second (and last) game. It has been quite an issue over the last week or so, due to a number of reasons:

Singapore Government through Temasek Holdings purchased the large share of Shin Corp from then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, which was a catalyst for Thaksin’s demise and the military coup.
Last month, diplomatic relations between the two countries were tested even further when Thaksin gave an interview on CNN in Singapore, and was guest of the Singapore premier (?).
In the first leg game in Singapore, with the scores 1-1, Singapore were awarded a controversial penalty by a Malaysian referee, that saw the Thai team leave the field in protest, before finally Singapore converting the penalty to create a 2-1 win.
With the big build up to tonight’s game, tens of thousands of Thai’s ended in protest after tickets were sold out in 2 hours.

So its going to be interesting to see what happens tonight. And there are two other big sporting events coming up in Bangkok this year:

In July the Asian Cup will be held in Thailand (and other south-east Asian countries). This will be the Socceroo’s first time in the Asia Cup, and is an important lead up to qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
In August the World University Games (Universiade) will be held in Bangkok, and more specifically hosted at Thammasat University Rangsit Campus. Although I don’t get any special holidays, lectures will be postponed for a month, and I may spend several days assisting with the Games.

Although I do miss seeing the cricket, I hope to make up for it with experiencing a few different sporting events this year.

Created on Sun, 04 Feb 2007, 5:56pm

Last changed on Sun, 04 Feb 2007, 7:13pm