Now, since I started this website some 5 years ago, the banner photo has always been a panoramic of the WACA Ground from Day 1 of the 2017-18 Ashes Test between Australia and England (December 14, 2017), which just happened to be the last Test match played at the WACA…

And the last Ashes Test in Perth.

Fast forward many years, today I went back to the WACA to watch the Sheffield Shield Final between Western Australia and Tasmania, which was the first time I’ve been able to witness a Shield Final after I couldn’t make it in 2022 and ’23, and the first time I’d actually been back to the WACA since the Perth Scorchers played their last Big Bash game there in January 2018.

So, just before the match ended and WA completed the Threepeat a few minutes shy of stumps on Day 4, I tried to find the exact seat I took the photo from 6 years earlier, and I think I was only a few rows off, but the end result is still the same…

Here is December 2017:

And March 2024:

As an added bonus, here’s a few others I found from 2017 and today:

Of course, the obvious change is the northern side of the ground (The Prindiville and the Inverarity Stands + the temporary stands to the northeast) has been demolished as part of the redevelopment project that started in 2021, as the memories of beer snakes gone by are all we have left.

Light Tower No.2 was demolished, to be replaced by a high-performance centre.

The LED signage is long gone.

The big screen on the eastern side is gone.

You can now visibly see Optus Stadium in the background (It was still a month away from opening during the Ashes Test), and the Matagarup Bridge was completed within a year, despite delays due to material shortages.

Funnily enough, we could hear the Optus Stadium siren during the cricket while West Coast played GWS.