If Day 1 was a sprint, Day 2 was more a deep breath. I woke up feeling like I’d spent twenty-four hours in a highlight reel. The suitcase drama, Konstas’s innings, the crowd, the art exhibition, a chat with the Cricket Australia CEO – my brain felt full and my legs were sore. I’d seen enough chaos. Today, I just wanted to sit with the game, not chase it. So, I slowed down.
The play had already begun by the time I entered the ground, and for the first time on this trip, I didn’t mind missing a few overs. As I entered the stands, I heard the crowd roar at a boundary, and all the aches I came to the ground with evaporated instantly. Upon taking my seat, I noticed the Indian players wearing black armbands. That symbolism only meant one thing – someone important had passed away. A quick Google revealed it was the late Dr Manmohan Singh, ex-prime minister of India. God bless his soul.
While it wasn’t the best news to start my day with, the armbands only made me appreciate the culture of the sport even more. Let me tell you how. Cricket, as a sport, is a world of its own. Sure, there are the occasional politics and rumours that link the world outside with the game, but on a day-to-day basis, there’s so much happening within the game – from updates about players to sponsor drama – that it’s easy to get caught up in it all and forget to look beyond it. That’s why gestures like the black armband honouring a national leader of the past show that after all is said and done, the players haven’t lost sight of the fact this is just a game, and there’s an entire world that exists outside of it and functions independently of them.
Like I said, Day 2 became all about the atmosphere, the spirit, the ambience of the ground. I stepped back and took it all in. I don’t remember much about the play, but that’s not to say it wasn’t memorable. It’s just that the match took a back seat as I decided to simply exist in the beauty of everything that was happening around me.
It was a beautiful sunlit day, so I took a stroll around the stadium during lunch and checked out the legendary statues all around the ground. There’s something about those walks in between overs and innings that remind you cricket isn’t just about what’s happening on the pitch. It’s everything around it. The rituals, the people, the memory. Those sixteen statues, standing silently as the crowds pass by, are living proof. They show that what brings people back year after year isn’t just runs or wickets. It’s culture. And cricket, more than most sports, knows how to hold onto it.
For those who aren’t well-versed in the lore of these statues, look at the list below; if a name catches your eye, maybe read up on them a little. They’re all great men and women who deserve every ounce of attention we can pay them.
Legends enshrined in bronze
- Sir Donald Bradman (cricket)
- Shane Warne (cricket)
- Dennis Lillee (cricket)
- Bill Ponsford (cricket)
- Keith Miller (cricket)
- Neil Harvey (cricket)
- Shirley Strickland (athletics)
- Betty Cuthbert (athletics)
- Ron Barassi (Australian Rules Football)
- Leigh Matthews (Australian Rules Football)
- Dick Reynolds (Australian Rules Football)
- Haydn Bunton Sr (Australian Rules Football)
- Norm Smith (Australian Rules Football)
- John Coleman (Australian Rules Football)
- Jim Stynes (Australian Rules Football)
- Kevin Bartlett (Australian Rules Football)
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know the stories behind many of them until I found myself wandering past their bronzed likenesses. There’s something about seeing them up close, out there in the open air, that nudges you into curiosity. And once you start reading, it’s hard not to get drawn in. These aren’t just names; they’re chapters in Australia’s sporting history, quietly waiting for someone to stop and take notice.
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The magic of the stadium
That’s the beauty of showing up in person. The TV gives you the angles, the stats, the analysis. But the stadium gives you everything else – the pause, the wandering, the side stories that sneak up on you while you’re looking for coffee or stretching your legs. You stumble upon greatness, sometimes literally. And in moments like that, the game almost becomes secondary because you realise that the sport isn’t only played on the field. It’s lived in the footsteps around it.
At one point, I wandered in the stadium to a Shane Warne Legacy Health Check clinic, a small stall with a self-serve style health check machine and a life-size cut-out of Shane Warne in his classic hat-tipping pose. His family and close associates have set it up as a small but powerful way to carry forward his legacy, turning a public health message into something personal. Observing the atmosphere around the stall with hundreds of fans queuing up to check their heart rate and other health metrics, I realised how uniquely Australian the whole concept is. Dignified, yet playful, just like Warney.
Inside the stadium, the crowd did a Mexican wave. I too jumped up with the rest, arms in the air, cheering like a kid at recess. After the final session, I walked out of the stadium with a sense of fulfillment about the day. Unlike the day before, there was no drama today – just good cricket and some space to think. But Melbourne, as always, wasn’t done with me yet.
This excerpt from ‘My Summer of Cricket’ by Nikhil Kulkarni has been published with permission from Hembury Books.