25th - Australia V Sussex

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Today was going to be our most relaxing day of the tour so far. Although late nights for 95% of the team meant that the 8 o’clock start was not welcome, everyone clambered onto the bus. Our first stop was Hambledon, a small village with a cricket oval. It was here that the rules for cricket were first drawn up and has a place in sporting history as the original home of cricket. Around the pub that the committee meetings were held there were paintings and drawings of the original games to be played out on the Broadhalfpenny oval (The Hambledon oval). It was interesting to see the origins of the game that has taken us so far across the world and cost our parents so much money over the years.

Next we got back on the bus and went down to Hove, Brighton where the tour game between Australia and Sussex was taking place. The ground proved to be a complete contrast to the Gabba with no replay screen and not many stands. Australia were in the field and it was good to see them all before the much anticipated Ashes series in July. Apart from the calls from Cameron Skinner of “Get him offfff” in relation to off spinner Nathan Hauritz, the atmosphere was good and the Ashes may prove to be closer than last time.

A couple of the boys were lucky enough to get the autographs of Mitchell Johnson, the spearhead of the Australian attack and Phil Hughes, who has been labelled as the next Bradman due to his form in the early county season.

As we were just about to leave, I stumbled across the leader of the Barmy Army, who is well known in cricketing circles. I said that we had met once previously on Boxing day of the previous Ashes and he quickly said “Yes, well that was hard work, but I think we have the advantage this time.”

Around this time we also discovered that Lleyton Hewitt had disposed of 5th seed Juan Martin Del Potro in straight sets at Wimbledon and this brought great joy to the whole team.

We returned back to the school to be picked up by our billets and knew we had an early start to look forwards to tomorrow….

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