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The nobility of beach cricket (Best of 2024) · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. I'm Claire Harvey. We're hoping you're having
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  Speaker 1: a great holiday break and today we're bringing you one
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  Speaker 1: of our favorite episodes from the year. This episode originally
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  Speaker 1: aired in January twenty twenty four, when we were enjoying
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  Speaker 1: those hazy days between Christmas and the return of real life.
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  Speaker 1: Today Matt Condon on the nobility of beach cricket. The
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  Speaker 1: Front will return with all new episodes on Monday, January thirteen.
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  Speaker 1: Just hit follow or subscribe to make sure you don't
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  Speaker 1: miss an episode This summer.
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  Speaker 2: I made the executive fatherly decision that we as a
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  Speaker 2: family would actively participate in the greatest and most egalitarian
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  Speaker 2: of Australian sports, beach cricket, and not just take part,
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  Speaker 2: but immerse ourselves in this pastime that transcended the notion
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  Speaker 2: of winning or losing, that precluded nobody young or old,
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  Speaker 2: pauper or king, and that was the purest of human interaction,
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  Speaker 2: one that had no truck with politics or race or
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  Speaker 2: any other petty human irritations and squabbles. Beach cricket went
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  Speaker 2: to the core of what it meant to be Australian,
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  Speaker 2: and I wanted my children to sip from that sweet
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  Speaker 2: well before they grew up and established independent lives and
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  Speaker 2: wanted nothing to do with me, or less to do
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  Speaker 2: with me than they already did. It was a race
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  Speaker 2: against time. I meticulously prepared what I hoped would brand
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  Speaker 2: itself in their minds as an unforgettable family experience, and
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  Speaker 2: having never been a cricketer myself, turned to the master,
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  Speaker 2: Donald Bradman for instruction. I sat the kids down in
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  Speaker 2: front of YouTube and forced them to watch crackling ancient
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  Speaker 2: footage of Bradman dexterously hitting a golf ball off a
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  Speaker 2: water tank with a single cricket stump.
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  Speaker 3: Bradman never knew which way that ball was going to twist,
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  Speaker 3: and dart necked and trying to follow which flight gave
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  Speaker 3: him an eye like a gimlet and risks like quicksilver.
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  Speaker 3: If you stick at this sort of practice long enough,
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  Speaker 3: the day will come when you'll be able to catch
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  Speaker 3: anything from measles to a seagull.
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  Speaker 2: By now, the kids were nodding off and had missed
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  Speaker 2: the measles and seagull gag. I persisted with an old
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  Speaker 2: documentary on Bradman giving priceless lessons on how to play
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  Speaker 2: the game.
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  Speaker 4: Let us see, first of all, in slow motion a
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  Speaker 4: forward defensive shot to be absolutely correct. In a technical sense,
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  Speaker 4: the bat should be a little closer to the leg,
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  Speaker 4: but you will see quite clearly the fundamentals are playing
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  Speaker 4: straight and well forward towards.
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  Speaker 3: The pitch of the ball.
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  Speaker 2: With the children fast asleep, I refused to be deterred.
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  Speaker 2: There were lessons in life from Sir Don and I
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  Speaker 2: wanted my children to be fully prepared for our first
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  Speaker 2: beach cricket match in years. My oldest son, eighteen year
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  Speaker 2: old Finn, was in the riptide of his first romance
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  Speaker 2: and easily distracted, though he agreed to be a part
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  Speaker 2: of the game. Bridy, my fifteen year old, was compliant
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  Speaker 2: but nonplussed. Would the game, she queried take long, given
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  Speaker 2: she was permanently online and in an endless digital queue
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  Speaker 2: waiting to score tickets to an upcoming Coldplay concert. As
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  Speaker 2: for my youngest, Ollie, almost eleven and the last of
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  Speaker 2: my children to half listen to me, agreed to come
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  Speaker 2: along if I could find a way to surgically remove
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  Speaker 2: his hands from his PlayStation remote control. Leading up to
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  Speaker 2: the game, I played on the car stereo a loop
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  Speaker 2: of the Old World Series cricket television anthem that had
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  Speaker 2: so inspired and ear wormed me as a child in
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  Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies. Whenever I heard those majestic horns and
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  Speaker 2: kettle drums, that urgent clarion call, that Pavlov's bell that
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  Speaker 2: set me salivating, my mind was transported back to the
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  Speaker 2: Elysian fields of the SCG, the MCG and the Gabba.
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  Speaker 2: How the memories flooded b I wanted my children to
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  Speaker 2: luxuriate in the brutal, mowhair chested genius of Australian fast
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  Speaker 2: bowler Dennis Lily demolishing the West Indies in the Boxing
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  Speaker 2: Day Test at the MCG in nineteen eighty one.
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  Speaker 3: And it's nick that he's got him great bawling by
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  Speaker 3: Dennis Lilly.
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  Speaker 4: Well the Australian's alive.
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  Speaker 3: What a session, what a crowd, and what an aunus.
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  Speaker 2: Not to mention the famous Shane Warn ball of the
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  Speaker 2: century that took the wicked of English cricketer Mike Gatting
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  Speaker 2: at Old Trafford on June four, nineteen ninety three. Blink
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  Speaker 2: and you'd miss it.
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  Speaker 4: First ball in Test cricket in England for Shane Warn, and.
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  Speaker 5: He's done it. He started off with the most beautiful delivery.
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  Speaker 5: Garry has absent asolutely no idea what has happened to it?
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  Speaker 2: He still doesn't know. I wanted my children to be
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  Speaker 2: moved to tears at cricket's rich emotional tapestry. I wanted
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  Speaker 2: the game's unforgettable moments, like the rousing recent farewell for
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  Speaker 2: Australian batting warrior Dave Warner, to be milestones in the
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  Speaker 2: calendars of their lives.
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  Speaker 6: There's a wonderful scenes here. He's done his job, as
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  Speaker 6: he so often did through his country. The emotion, the passion,
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  Speaker 6: all coming to the fore. Now it is a full
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  Speaker 6: stop on a remarkable career.
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  Speaker 2: I assemble the equipment for our match. So convinced was
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  Speaker 2: I of its importance. I had already imagined slow motion,
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  Speaker 2: black and white reruns of the game's highlights. Little Ollie
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  Speaker 2: cracking the ball way out into the earth. Bridy, not
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  Speaker 2: the lion of spin but the lioness, and Finn reigniting
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  Speaker 2: his short but promising single season cricket career. Aged twelve,
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  Speaker 2: When tall and gangly and nicknamed Styx by his classmates
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  Speaker 2: because of his skinny legs, he was briefly an embryonic
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  Speaker 2: fast bowler Alah Glen McGrath before the enthusiasm went away
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  Speaker 2: like measles. So on a recent gray Sunday, we packed
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  Speaker 2: a set of cuocobaro plastic stumps and a white ball
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  Speaker 2: and headed into be Longual Beach in Byron Bay for
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  Speaker 2: our lifelong memory yet to be played out on the
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  Speaker 2: creamy sands between a row of multi million dollar beach houses,
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  Speaker 2: cowering beyond a wall of giant, hopefully erosion proof boulders
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  Speaker 2: and the sea. We'll be back after this short break.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back to this special bonus episode of The Front.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Matt Condon. If you spend enough summers in Byron Bay,
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  Speaker 2: you learn its pristine beaches belonjel Main Beach, Clark's Watergoes, Tallow's,
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  Speaker 2: Suffolk Park and even Broken Head are largely devoid of cricket,
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  Speaker 2: but are more of the playgrounds for soccer and volleyball.
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  Speaker 2: Courting rituals, lonely dreadlocked guitarists singing obscure neil young songs,
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  Speaker 2: moist eyed teenagers straight from a relationship breakup, and influences
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  Speaker 2: pouting at their phones. On the day of our big
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  Speaker 2: match at blondel this reignition of our grand family tradition.
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  Speaker 2: We harbored lofty hopes that we could return this ancient
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  Speaker 2: Australian sport to its coastline, bring it back to the
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  Speaker 2: forefront of Byron's consciousness, and return it to the town's
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  Speaker 2: top shelf. Beside whale and dolphin spotting, celebrity preening, mystic
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  Speaker 2: healing crystals, Tesla's and billowing white linen apparel. We were
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  Speaker 2: bristling to play. We gathered up our bat and ball
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  Speaker 2: and stumps and headed down to the sand.
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  Speaker 5: Wonder what the waves alike? Well, you can get a
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  Speaker 5: sweat up bowling? How's that?
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  Speaker 7: What's awling?
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  Speaker 5: Olly? Who what bowling is?
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  Speaker 7: What's a sweater?
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  Speaker 5: Not a sweater? A sweat up? You get sweaty playing cricket?
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  Speaker 7: Oh, I thought you said sweat.
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  Speaker 5: You can wear a sweater if you want. It's only
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  Speaker 5: nine degrees.
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  Speaker 7: I thought you said.
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  Speaker 2: And with that small linguistic kickup out of the way,
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  Speaker 2: we set up on an almost empty beach and readied
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  Speaker 2: ourselves for some fierce competition.
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  Speaker 8: Variety is in place. Finds at bat Olly, first ball
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  Speaker 8: of the day. You gotta stop it. I won't say
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  Speaker 8: it's a boundary, but.
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  Speaker 5: It's in the water.
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  Speaker 2: Then Bridy bowls.
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  Speaker 5: This is going to be interesting.
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  Speaker 9: Ah ah no, oh my god, that's six and gone,
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  Speaker 9: possibly forever behind the rocks.
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  Speaker 2: I take the bat and expect at least a moderate
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  Speaker 2: degree of sledging.
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  Speaker 7: All right, Dad's going in for the first ball of
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  Speaker 7: the day. He's going, Oh, what a shocker.
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  Speaker 5: I wouldn't call it a socker, thanks, Alli, wasn't my best.
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  Speaker 8: What can you stop calling it a soccer?
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  Speaker 2: The game ebbs, The game flows, Finn has lost none
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  Speaker 2: of his bowling speed, Bridey proves an accomplished fielder, and
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  Speaker 2: to Olie everything is a shocker.
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  Speaker 7: Oh he hits a shocker.
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  Speaker 5: As he is me. I blocked him on the wicket. Ye.
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  Speaker 2: Then, as it always manages to do, the game produces
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  Speaker 2: a magic moment with Ollie in at bat and Finn bowling,
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  Speaker 2: this happens.
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  Speaker 5: Watch the ball, Ollie, what a shot? Car got bawled.
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  Speaker 8: Oh my goodness, what a wicket, what a shot, what
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  Speaker 8: a catch.
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  Speaker 2: It was a fitting end to the game. Nobody counted
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  Speaker 2: their runs. There were no losers. We were all winners,
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  Speaker 2: and so was cricket. On the way back to the car.
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  Speaker 2: We were already nostalgically ruminating over the game as we
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  Speaker 2: would ten maybe twenty years into the future. Ollie interviewed
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  Speaker 2: us as we walked off the beach, how do.
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  Speaker 8: You feel about your performance today, shaker.
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  Speaker 5: You? How was your performance? Oh, I don't know the
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  Speaker 5: best performances in my career, yeah, your extensive cricket career.
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  Speaker 7: How do you feel about your performance today?
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  Speaker 5: Dad?
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  Speaker 8: Well, I blocked my wicket with each ball didn't get out,
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  Speaker 8: so I'm very happy.
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  Speaker 5: Okay, let's up stumps, let's go.
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  Speaker 2: What a game, What a day. Who knows if the
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  Speaker 2: kids will remember our game of beach cricket going forward
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  Speaker 2: as they live their lives. But for one perfect hour
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  Speaker 2: beneath leaden skies and to applause from the roaring waves,
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  Speaker 2: we as one Australian family, joined, however briefly, an honored
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  Speaker 2: and noble summer tradition.
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  Speaker 1: You can read all the nation's best news, sport, politics
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