Boxing Day 2006.

Two of the very best bowlers in the world.

Glen McGrath, fast bowler number three in the world
Shane Warne, leg spin bowler number one in the world.
They will leave a huge hole in the Australian Cricket Team.

A cold/showery day forecast for the start of the fourth test match.

Shane Warne contemplating the match prior to the start.

Getting underway in the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

Down to the serious side of racing.

Well Christmas is over for another year, Boxing Day Dec. 26^th.

This day sees two of Australia’s premier sporting events begin, The
Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race begins as does the Boxing day Test Match
in Melbourne between England and Australia.

It will come as no surprise to most people when I say that we
Australians are fanatical about sports, our sporting achievements,
for a nation with a population just over 20 million, are to say the least
impressive, our individual and team performances for both Men and
Women rank us as a top sporting nation.

We also seem to excel at staging great sporting events and attending
these events in very large numbers, Melbourne, capital city of Victoria,
rightly or wrongly claims to be the leaders in staging and attending
these events.

They have staged the Melbourne Cup, the horse race that stops a
nation, and the Australian Football League Grand final, at the same
MCG where today’s test cricket will commence, for over 100 years,
always to huge crowds so they may be right.

So it comes as no surprise that the Boxing Day Test has drawn a
crowd of over 95,000 people, in spite of the fact that the test series
has already been decided in Australia’s favour with a 3 nil unbeatable
lead, also that today’s weather forecast is for a cold and showery day.

An added incentive for the crowd to come out today is the announced
retirement of two of our best Bowlers, Shane Warne who has the
worlds record for taking the most test cricket wickets, this is 699 at
the moment and is confidently expected to exceed 700 by games end,
the other retiree is Glen McGrath ranks number three in the world with
555 test wickets he is overshadowed only by Warne.

As I write this the start of the Sydney To Hobart Yacht Race is almost
due at 12 midday Sydney time, this is one of the worlds premier yacht
races with boats and crews from all over the world competing, the
course for this race is down the East Coast of Australia and across
Bass Strait to Tasmania.

This can include some of the roughest water in the world at times and
the race has a history of wrecking some of the worlds best boats, the
1998 race ended with 6 fatalities and more than half the fleet damaged
and failing to complete the course, the boats battled a 6 metre swell
and waves to 13 metres that year.

The forecast for today is a probable spinnaker start, always spectacular,
but with stormy weather developing, we can only hope this will not be
as bad as it can get and there are no tragedies this year.

A last minute update; Warne has his 700^th wicket, Martin Strauss
the English opener.