Lev - Our Tasmanian devil
Adam Leventhal tells you ten things you probably didn't need to know about "Tassie".
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Did you know that there are two interesting anagrams of the word Tasmania. One should be dug out at Christmas to make the children of the island smile: I am Santa, the other should be revealed to scare the living daylights out of the little blighters: I am Satan.
Ben and myself discovered this fact as we were having dinner in Hobart at a very homely restaurant called the Drunken Admiral. They serve arguably the best oysters in the world, they were so fresh that the shelled jewels were willing to exchange a few words with me before I gobbled them up.
We were eating there after a busy first day in Tassie, England had netted at the quant Bellerive Oval that morning and we'd done a lot of filming around the capital. One of the main things I learnt from that first day was that the sun over Tassie feels stronger than anywhere else I've been. It was a case of slip, slap, slop a lot, or lose a layer of skin. Apparently the hole in the ozone layer lies pretty much directly over Tassie, so there's no protection and you really feel it.
For the first time on this one-day tour we were staying in the same hotel as the team in Hobart. It's not always the case when your on tour, but I do think it is a plus when you are as you can occasionally catch a few words with the players when they're in a relaxed frame of mind. You can also spy on them₻ only joking!
We'd gone to bed that night under the impression we would be producing a colour piece the next day, matchday, centered on ten things you didn't know about Tassie.
The list was as follows, two Aussie greats Ponting and Boon hail from there, it's the southern most inhabited capital city in the world, the ozone layer thing, England's media officer James Avery was born in Hobart, Tassie Devils are endangered and almost extinct, the anagrams, Bellerive Oval may become an Ashes test venue, oldest brewery in Oz, something else (sorry memory like a sieve, but it was good) and then the place where England won for the first time on their tour of Australia.
However, the brief changed over night and we produced a piece about one of those issues, the fact that the Bellerive Oval is potentially going to host the sixth Ashes test if the series is expanded. Personally I don't see the point in extending a five match series to six, because if its competitive (as we hoped the last one would be) you're increasing the chances of there being a drawn series.
We had some fun shooting around the ground, there was a jazz band trio, two rather strange men on stilts holding flamingo's, beautiful views, an interesting museum about the history and highlights of Tassie cricket and David Boon. We were hoping to have a word with him after he'd completed a signing session of his mini talking dolls for beer brand VB, but he rather annoyingly managed to evade us with excuse after excuse up until the point where we had to proceed without him. Nevermind, maybe we'll catch up with him somewhere else on tour.
It was a bitter sweet day for England, obviously the victory was a real boon, but the news that Michael Vaughan had injured his hamstring was a sting. After the match both he and Freddie attended the press conference, Flintoff's unbeaten 72 had saved England and I was glad to see him finally play as freely as we know he can.
His innings was overshadowed but the now bigger issue, how long Vaughan would be out and who would replace him whilst he was missing.
After a late finish feeding from WIN television in Hobart we decided to unwind with a few frames of pool at a pub next to our hotel. It did feel rather strange though, we were the only people in there and it did feel a bit like we'd broken in during the night, because we had the run of the place.
It was an entertaining hour or so, and it was where Ben developed a nickname. As I won more and more frames, "the best of" grew and grew, first it was best of three then five and so and so on until he decided it would be best of six when he felt he had a sniff of a comeback. In the end, I decided to start calling him Hobart considering he wanted to ensure there was drawn series. However, his ploy was academic in the end, we played six and I won four of them, geddin! Hobarts nickname has stuck though.
We had an early departure from Hobart the next day, and two flights, firstly to Sydney then onto Brisbane. I'd like to give you a window into the educated conversations that a group of journalists have when they are flying in between tour destinations. To be fair to the rest of us, this particular yarn (conversation in strayan) was started by my sidekick Hobart (Ben, if you've already forgotten) so it wasn't our fault. He decided that we had to guess how many seconds there were between the plane going full throttle on the runway to the point when the wheels left the ground. Brilliant.
Just so you know, I guessed 16 seconds - completely wrong. The right answer for our Boeing 737 on the Hobart main runway was 36. However, that isn't a constant duration interestingly enough, the time it takes can fluctuate (I'm boring myself) depending on the amount of (boring!) luggage on the plane. On a bigger plane for our flight from Sydney to Brisbane it was 26. Wow!
It was nice to be back in Brisbane, this was where England's and my journey had begun back in November. On arriving there, the news broke that scans had revealed that Michael Vaughan had suffered a grade 1 tear to his left hamstring and Mal Loye had been called up to replace him, also that a stand-in skipper would be announced in due course. I find "due course" a funny phrase, it actually gives you no idea when something is going to happen, it purely confirms that something will happen.
We all expected the announcement to happen when the England team arrived at their hotel. However, I spoke to James Avery as he was about to get on the plane, and he suggested to me that the various parties involved had decided that nothing would be set in stone until the following day.
As we waited for the team to arrive that evening, the feeling amongst the press pack was that it would possibly make the ECB look as if they were dithering if they didn't announce the replacement immediately, and it was leading to speculation that perhaps Freddie had not been offered the job again after the whitewash and Strauss would be given a go.
However, the pressure seemingly paid off and they did call a Freddie presser when they docked at the hotel. Flintoff was impressive, very honest and refreshingly frank, good on him.
Earlier that evening we had stumbled across possibly one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. We had gone out to get some shots of the sun setting over the Gabba, and we needed to get up high to get a better vantage point. There was a block of flats with a perfect view so we decided to go and investigate.
We went up to the top floor and I knocked on the door, a small women answered the door and I asked if she wouldn't mind if we took some shots from her balcony, she called inside to check with her husband, and they agreed that it would be fine. As we walked through the kitchen area which adjoined the front door, we both got the feeling that there was definitely more than just a husband and wife living in the house. The main clue was that neither of them were watching the television in the living room that was on, they were having dinner in another part of the flat (or unit as they call them over here).
That was when Ben and myself had a twilight zone experience, we were lead through the living room to the balcony and there we saw something very weird. We had been right about there being someone else living in the house with the couple. It was unbelievable. On the sofa, which was very large indeed, there were at least three hundred soft toy Gorillas all facing the television, in fact the whole room was covered in soft toys to the point that one had to step over them to get to the balcony. Stranger than the fact that the sofa was unusable due to its dwellers, there was a small table situated nearer the television which had been laid out with cutlery for several more gorillas who were also watching the television.
However, adding spookiness to weirdness not a word was spoken by the wife as she lead us through her menagerie, not even a "oh sorry for probably the weirdest thing you've ever seen, its just we are fascinated by stuffed toys and they are taking over our house and we can't stop them!" Nevertheless, we got the shots and then got the stuffed toy out of there!
Preview day was fun packed and we got a lot of material, one on ones with Freddie and David Graveney plus a Mal Loye, Ravi Bopara and Adam Gilchrist presser. We went to the very picturesque feed point on the top of a hill, slightly out of Brisbane and sent the material back to the UK for their 0600 early morning deadline.
Matchday was slightly frustrating, we had planned to do an interview with Geraint Jones, whose playing for a local side near Brisbane during the aussie summer, but he wasn't keen to do an interview having been dropped from the team and the world cup squad. It was also a frustrating day for England, although they fought back after being bowled out cheaply, they came up just short and once again the Aussies had the last laugh. Lets hope one of these one dayer's the smile will be on the three lions faces instead of the "braggy green".
LEV ANSWERS YOUR EMAIL...
Greetings mate from England! I just wanted to give you a shout. So Tim has passed you the baton to tackle England cricket. Are you enjoying it so far? It's cold in England so you are not missing much and it sounds like you are having a ball out there. England have picked their provisional squad for the World Cup - not many surprises but no Stuart Broad and the same old routine of picking Vikram Solanki. The players who deserve a chance like Khan, Onions, Loye, will more than likely get omitted for Duncan's boys like Jimmy Anderson, Sajid Mahmood, Liam Plunkett and Chris Tremlett. And how much different is it covering internationals from county games and ODIs domestically? Is it more work or more relaxation? It sounds like more relaxation. Anyway all the best and keep bugging Fletcher and the rest and lets hope KP gets fit for the World Cup because we need him on fire. Take it easy. Carl.
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ADAM SAYS: Carl, thanks very much for getting in touch, a pleasure to hear from you. Firstly, am I enjoying the trip so far, of course I am. As I said in my first tour diary, it's an absolute privilege to be covering England's one day tours. Hopefully the fact that Tim does the Tests and I do the one dayers has ensured that there is variety for the viewers and also a freshness about the coverage. To be perfectly honest I am not missing the cold of the UK one bit, I am quite happy missing out on winter and chasing summer around the globe. In answer to your statement about it sounding as if I do more relaxing than working then I'd have to disagree. While it is fantastic to be travelling to new and exciting places covering England cricket, being on tour is often harder work than when you are back in the UK. In addition, due to the fact that the UK is usually around 10 hours behind, there is the opportunity to work long hours and be available for phone interviews or feeds 'til late at night. Believe me I'm not complaining, I buzz off the hustle and bustle and it's why I love the job I do.
Regarding your points about the provisional world cup squad, I think it is a very exciting collection of names and I think the final 15 that is announced on February 15th will throw up a few surprises. Stuart Broad is in the 30 and when I spoke to David Graveney in Melbourne he spoke very warmly about his progress, in my humble opinion I think he might be a surprise inclusion having missed out on the Ashes squad. Don't dismiss the likes of Anderson, Plunkett, Mahmood and Tremlett though, Jimmy's done very well of late, especially against the Aussies at the Gabba, and Tremlett needs to be looked at having finally got his chance. It may be though that Plunkett and Mahmood are fighting for one place in the squad, and it's tough on Liam in particular because he's had a wretched run with injuries.
Finally, Loye has now got his chance and whilst Vaughans away he's got the perfect opportunity to stake a claim for a world cup squad.
