Ashes Poetry

Hi, I’m David Fine, npower Ashes poet in residence 2009. For every day’s play I’ll write a poem, which will appear here. That’s how it worked in 2006/7 in Australia, funded by www.artscouncil.org.uk  This year you’ll see my notebook live….. the lines in the scoreboard are delivered in real time from http://twitter.com/ashespoetry  - as I write them in the stands they appear in the scorebard – a brilliant idea of James Grimster www.orangeleaf.com  Click ‘About and Join’ to sign up for a blog-post/newsletter via e-mail to keep you up to date without having to check the site – though you’ll miss all the scoreboard action!

From a cricketing point of view the aficionados will be eager to see how England’s fledging spin-twins, Swannie and Monty, make out. Are they Laker and Lock or Embers and Tuffers? At Worcester how will Captain Bell and other wannabe England batters fair against the Aussie attack, where Mitchell Johnson, the stand-out quick of either team, and Stuart Clark, the find of the 5-0 Strinewash, will discover how they like English conditions. Low flat wickets without too much pace seem the order of the day. With a Level Three Met Office heat wave warning we might see the Ashes go into the melting pot, literally.

Ashes? All the hype about their meaning and tradition has vanished. … .Edgbaston borders onto the Cadbury’s model factory and workers housing, Quaker ideals, like Fry’s in York, a co-operative utopia all lost in theme-park Euroland where Cadbury’s World is as much as you can eat and as little as you need dream. La dolce vita, or did they ever play cricket in Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory?

Talking of scran, by lunch Swanny and Monty are carrying on where five-for Anderson left off. Super Freddie Centaur Flintoff – both man and stallion – took a couple but Broad exerting control didn’t look as dangerous. First time I’ve seen Swan bowl live and he is a classical off-spinner, David Allen and John Mortimore rolled into one with a more economical run, all to give a natural loop Monty strives for but pushes through. The spinners – with slow pitches – should give Strauss a measure of control absent downunder. Without Warne Australia  look not just a bowler short but a pub without beer and beer-taps, not to mention glasses, spitoons and one-armed bandits. It seems weird to think of the Green Baggies racing onto the field of play without the familiar tilt-up sun-hat in view. Not that England will mind.  No Warne is like all the speed cameras and Fatso Gatsos disappearing overnight and you can drive to your hearts content – either side of the wicket too.

Lunch at Worcester Aussies 358-ish all out, English Lions 68 for nowt, Albion fighting back in the bipartite phoney Ashes War.

Super Centaur Flintoff returns after scoff to polish off the Bears to bat again pdq but Monty bags another before the hundred comes up courtesy of four leg-byes via Boyd Rankin’s shoulder off a Centaurious bouncer.

Swanny and Monty  are in competition and cahoots. Both vying for a certain single spinner’s spot yet  if each do well a spot could become two (if not a rash!) and both play next to the Taff at Cardiff.  Monty snaffles the Boyd Rankin, who  sounds like a character who never quite made it into Flan O’Brien’s surreal apocalyptic Third Policeman - the batsman who leaned upon his bat for so long that he and the bat became one, just as the Garda Sergeant and his bicycle. Boyd could never hang around for that long.

 England to bat, I reckon 248 for 7 declared half an hour before stumps – will have to go like the clappers as all Edgbaston glistens in stillness, a perfect iambic pentameter for James whose bought me a Solero to cool the muse…. over lunch I chatted to the press (since Warwickshire kindly offered us a box for a mini-launch) and I was asked if the poems rhymed…. All Edgbaston glisten in stillness …. please do read the sonnet at the end of this blog….

 Meanwhile after tea Straus c&b Woakes 61 on the drive. (Ponting, set a short mid-off or two, please note yesterday’s blog.) 109 for 1 enter the KP Well-used Hankerchief. Talk centres on the centre of percussion, aka the sweet spot or inside Keith Moon’s head, which KP WUH finds hooking Woakes in front of midwicket for four on the long, long boundary. James and Paul bemoan the lack of youngsters studying physics, I wish Bopara could rediscover his C of P. He seems to have played himself out of form in this match, trying to hit the ball a little too hard. Mind, if class is permanent Ian Bell would never be out of the England team. He rejoined the Primary Club at Worcester out first ball, the weight of expectation if not the centre of percussion resting all too heavily upon his shoulders. Pietersen mimicks Flintoff’s first innings glide to slips c. Clarke b Woakes 6.  Never mind dodgy ankles, knees and tendons, the off-side dab is their Achilles Heel – what does it profit a bat to nurdle down to third man perhaps just for one when it might be smited mightily for four?

Stumps England 185 for 2, Bopara back into decent nick but at Worcester Binger Lee reverse swing takes five – eat your heart out Dave Brubeck and watch your off-pegs disappear - “The ball was 45 overs old and when Lee held it, it curled like the wispy clouds above the ground.”  (www.cricinfo.com)

Talking of wispy clouds and atmosphere….

All Edgbaston

All Edgbaston glistens in stillness
rich twitch’d thick leav’d tree-tops rhythm the breeze
that doves fletch, fetch, stitch and stretch to the skies
beneath a bustard eye below cumulus.
Squawk’d calls, claps, smatters snatch passages in time,
balls and bats enchained to their sovereign rest
that plays out summer fields’ palimpsest:
daze to days call over without rhyme
to succour fulfilment near oblivion,
where wintry fever wrinkles grain and skin
into a wreath of smiles and unforc’d grins
at the long slow easy wait twixt seasons.
For just this by our ladies’ leave and bless
All Edgbaston glistens in stillness.

There are well over ten thousand empty seats at the ground today: trust me to choose the only which hadn’t tipped up. It was like sitting fully dressed in a bath. ‘Must have rained last night,’ I said to my neighbours. The wicket looks surprisingly green and Strauss in particular plays and misses outside off-stump, though that is his way. It must be curious batting; facing the pavilion the ground is packed, the city end deserted. In a month’s time the entire ground will be full. Third Test, the series still alive, even if one side is dormy two. Will we have an Edgbaston 2005, Flintoff consoling Lee after England’s three run victory, or Edgbaston 2008, South Africa making a steep last imnnings ask quite comfortably, Vaughan’s first and last Edgbaston Test since 2005. Time moves on.

I just thought Warwickshire had Strauss sussed – nothing short to cut and pull, then Woakes provides the necessary for a square-cut – four.Next over Rankin’s first ball overpitched is driven by Cooke for another boundary, – of about 100 yards so close is the strip to the Pershore Road. Two more fours driven, off back and front foot, and the game has changed. Ten overs in, the ball has lost its initial shine, the bowlers are beginning to tire at the start of long hot day. Tahir for Woakes, but England should 100 + for none at lunch. According to The Birmingham Post Brum is falling apart at the seams (unlike the ball, which isn’t deviating off the straight.) Tata in talks with PM to save Land Rover Jaguar. the new Digbeth coach station contractors have gone bust, and a well-known city restauranteur faces the wall, which he doubtless has his back to. I’d tell you more, except I’ve mislaid the paper, if not lost the plot. Nothing in the ground seems affected by dire economic conditions – worst slump since the ’50s.  Ambrose doffs his cap to reveal he’s become a slap-head, and that’s about it for change in Warwickshire. Reassuring really. Tahir bowls a wide, the first extra of the innings, to bring up the fifty. Barlett who is zippy slingy, gets Strauss to edge rather than just miss, for second slip to spill the chance which third slip can’t reach before it kisses the turf. Strauss off-drives for four, the bowl just beating the fielder to the boundary – his straight-batted shots never sound quite right, you can hear the bottom hand wanting to come through, so there is none of that delicious late timing of an Alec Stewart, or indeed a Cooke. Ponting may well place a short mid-off to his opposing captain for the one that goes up in the air. Strauss edges going for Tahir, to be caught by Rikki Clarke,making amends for his earlier drop. Enter Bopara, who times the ball well from the off, a bit of a stockier Ponting without the quick nimble feet.

It’s halfway towards tea – and oddly for a belter of a day there’s been no drinks intervals – Cooke’s got his hundred, Bopara a decentish forty, caught going for an over-ambitious hook, while Piersen proded at Clarke for a dodgily run one. He presses early on in his innnings, rather than let the ball come to him, which Collingwood, a nurdler’s nurdler, does without thinking. Maybe there is a case for, as in the apostles, Paul going in ahead of Pieter (And according to gospel of Matthew, Prior should open?) Shame about KP. You could tell when he was at the wicket in Australia: his bat made a sound quite unlike every other English batsman. Cooke looks safer than the Bank of England, which may not be saying that much these days, and though he presses forward more these days (to forstall getting trapped on the crease) he still retaines the angularity of a classical technique.

Essex  Shoreline

Harwich, Frinton, Clacton,
Brightlingsea, West Mersea,
Maldon, Burnham, Southend.
From the scapula of the Stour
to the humerous of the Naze
and the Thames phalanges

 Alistair Cook
gets all Essex over the ball;
its coast the shape of his elbow
stretching across East Anglia.

Just after tea, England 232 for 5, Australia vs Young Lions 238 for 6, even stephens. Apart from Cooke no one’s capitalised on an easy pitch and a one-paced attack. At Worcester Katisch and Hussey have played themselves into some form. Flintoff could do the same, and you appreciate how big a bloke he is, the bat is a wooden spatula in his grip. No wonder he oversleeps, there’s so just much of him to wake up all at once. Prior’s out opened up by medium pacer Tahir, as Freddie races to 19. He looks the most technically correct English batsman so far, which could be worrying for both sides until he fishes for one from Tahir to give catching practice to Clarke at slip. We could be watching the bears bat before close of play.

Strauss declares eight wickets down, at 290,  not wishing to give Monty or Jimmy Anderson batting practice (we’re already stuffed if that’s de rigour) and Warwickshire are 31 for 1 at stumps. Anderson and Broad at least a yard quicker than the Warwickshire attack, but over half-a-dozen sprayed down the leg side leading to the 30 odd.

On the train back home we compare notes with those from Worcester. At stumps Aus 337 for 8 Hussey 143 n.o. but Harmison and Onions five wickets between them and fairly economical. In terms of sending coded messages over the Lickey Hills, the green baggies seemed to have edged it…

Political Consequences

Games before games are statements
of intent, demonstrations, fleet reviews,
salutes and salutations, rocket launchers
trundle across the square gleaming.

Results are less material than
intended intimidation of similarly
belligerent opposition – psychological
salvoes across the bows of alleged superiority,
puts whomsoever securely in their place.

Worcester and Warwick are baronial hosts
to sallys and jousts of national pride:
Hussey and Cooke rally their orders,
Ponting and Pietersen fail the task.
All incidental, like prime ministers’
question times each side of antipodean hustings
in election year, except volley and retort
are hard ball delivered at ninety miles an hour.

Anything else wouldn’t be cricket.

This is my father’s day pressie from Kay and Laurel on the recently revarnished kitchen table of a wicket which I used to hide under as a lad since the days when born in Coventry. This is why I’m a Bear – Warwickshire through and through, even though not a drop of English blood courses through my veins (1/4 German, 1/4 Austrian, 1/2 Russian and 100% Jewish to be precise.)

Sometimes I’ve almost thought about supporting Russia at cricket England have played so badly, (and yes, I know true supporters support their teams through thick and thin, but there is only so much you can take, you know.) But I’d always support Warwickshire, and Coventry City, the greatest soccer team ever, for as my eldest brother said after we won the FA Cup in 1987 ‘There is nothing else to live for.’

England vs Warwickshire. Who do I support? Does it matter so long as we thrash the Aussies, who’ll be just down the Pershore Road warming up against the Young Lions at Worcester. Objectively speaking there’s something of a phoney war feel about affairs, the sharpening of swords, pencils, rss feeds and bon-mots for next Wednesday at Cardiff: the two games judged as a whole by England selectors, the Aussies keeping a weather eye on the form of likely opponents over the summer.

But as a Bear I want Warwickshire to win. Let’s face it not so long ago, Warwickshire was England. During the War of the Roses, Warwick was king-maker, the most powerful man in the country, a Bernie Ecclestone of Tudor politics.

Then Edgbaston was one of many such settlements in the county, probably larger than another called Birmingham. The River Rae ran through it, giving the name to the old Rae Bank stand, which became the Eric Hollies stand a few years back – the hoardings behind follow the Rae into the city. Edgbaston may well be one of the few test match grounds which could trace its origins back to medieval times….

…. in those days where could you play cricket?  You’d need somewhere flat; you’d need somewhere which wasn’t being used for anything else. A meadow would be ideal. Unlike humpy-bumpy ridge and furrow, meadows classically run besides rivers and streams: from Saxon times onwards they were developed for hay to over-winter livestock. Once the hay is cut, around June, July, for sheep and goats to give the final nibble, you have a flat open area free for cricket…

Just upstream and across the road from the ground was a mill. I saw it being excavated ahead of development just after the old Rae Bank stands went. Perhaps you can imagine the miller and the farmers playing the summer game just across the way as the water wheel clacked round and round:-

Chaff

Here on the Rae bank
stands a mill,
and beneath it, another
and perhaps another, still.

Their wheels still turn after harvesting
paled wheat once these fields were left
to seed, grain, then flour
to sell or take
for tithe, ex ultima
our daily bread to bake.

A trickle of water annoints their past,
the click of bearings ghosts their last.
Let the seasons turn like tables
from one year to the next
till time itself is winnowed from us all.
Forgive us our trespass,
it is enough to do no more.

Left, deserted, undefeated
how might you have done more?

Chance your arm, get out sooner
yet not your fault for other’s failures
to heed circumstances as found.

The innings end might seem a rescue
from a desert island you never wanted to leave
but like Robinson Crusoe you too had to depart
having grown accustomed to a place and its ways.

Mike Hussey 74 no out, top score of 244

It’s their way. Habitual as galahs
or car horns in the Eternal City,
as much to gull foreigners
as egg patriotism on.

Kevin Pietersen, 70, top score of 215

The Art of Batsmanship by Matthew Hoggard MBE

1. Play Straight
2. No fancy stuff
3. Hold the stroke
4. Especially if you miss
5. Don’t forget to tell ’em
Sod off

Every Australian

Second Innings Hayden hits 92.

Adam Gilchrist
Has often played and missed.
It’s when he connects
That the bowler regrets
ever bowling
into the hurdy-gurdy
whirligig six-hitting
machine.

Second dig Gillie hits 102 not out, the second fastest test century ever.

Grump, grump, grump I’m Glen McGrath,
Grump, grump, galumph, galgrumpalumph, I’m Glen McGrath,
I’ll bend your ear from here to the dressing room
And back again, over after over till you edge or miss
The point of my delivery.

Essex  Shoreline

Harwich, Frinton, Clacton,
Brightlingsea, West Mersea,
Maldon, Burnham, Southend.
From the scapula of the Stour
to the humerous of the Naze
and the Thames phalanges

Essex player Cook scored 116 second time round.

It never hit the bat.
Clearly missing the stumps.
The umpire’s finger,
not the acumen of the bowler,
sends you on your way.

Umpires’ fingers sawed Andrew Strauss’s legs at least twice during the series.
In other words made a mistake in firing him out. He accepts this without demur.
Methinks he protesteth too little.

Captain’s Dilemma

I need to bat well
bowl well, field well,
take all my catches,
help choose the team,
set fields, raise morale
when we’re down,
enthuse, cajole, console
and kick arse, royally
whenever necessary
and appropriately.

Ensure I do all I can
to ensure we play as a team
where everyone does the best they can
to win, or at least draw.
What on earth have I let myself in for?

A task that Hercules
would leave for others
more knowing of a hero’s
frailty..

Lost the toss at Perth but bowled them out for 244
Then our turn to bat and we didn’t match their score
Second innings Hussey, Clarke and Gilchrist all got tons
Now to save the Ashes we need to hit 560 runs,
we don’t need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell us the Ashes are gone.

Ode To Contest

Behind the bowler’s arm, scoreboard obscured,
Cloudy day, rain forecast but unlikely,
England’s prayers rest with God Almighty.
Two tall hopes nearly out before they’ve scored,
Fred survives, a tide of drives floods the boards,
Stupendous risk for six hooked off Brett Lee,
None down at drinks, game on, yet unlikely.
Braced danger-laced half-centuries yield applause
That courts the final strike. Five quick blows
Ends it all. All Australia rejoices;
Reclaims their men who reclaimed the Ashes
Against time and England’s proudest voices
Stilled. Half by half by half each candle’s ghost
Bleakens the dark hearth burnt out by your host.

Do they dare mention
what they watched on television?
Adverts for penile dysfunction
to the blokes they promised
to love, honour and obey?

Even though I set off ahead of myself I miss the first ball, where Langer drops another at slip. Certainly lives up to the position’s name. Maybe his mates are repeating the crowd’s Yabba-esque comment ‘This is the last test you’ll ever play, Langer.’

Yesterday I sat next to the Yabba stand, named after the great Sydney barracker who yelled from the Hill querying England captains about colonial insect and political life -‘”Leave our flies alone, Jardine. They’re the only friends you’ve got.” and “Dexter, what about the Common Market?” Greg Baum in the SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) bemoaned the lack of wit among the fans, especially his own, the Fanatics. “They mistake noise for wit, identity for character, attention for fame.” Maybe the Beefy Booney game has become too sanitised for its own good.

I missed the oversanitised start of play because of the queues trying to get in and then round the ground. The SCG catering facilities are about as nonged as the MCG, only less variety, but they take the biscuit (except you’d have to queue for it to find they’d run out) when it comes to enabling patrons get to their seats. On the whole Australian test cricket stadia are good. Signs are poor, and hired staff don’t know or can’t give correct directions either but the bag searching and electronic ticket scanning works well. Not today. Thundering great queues, and once in, thickets of cops standing around doing XXXX all except get in the way of your trek halfway round the ground to Bay 3 which is both not labelled and incorrectly labelled so Crowd Security directs me to Bay 4 instead. Crowd Security – you feel safe with them.

The Bradman Stand (and he had many with Ponsford, Morris, Hassett, Fingleton, McCabe, Woodfull, but always with himself) is appropriately non-alcoholic. The Don imbibed but hardly drank.

The SCG needs egress around here. The Doug Walters Stand, which by rights should have been smokers only, is about to go. If the SCG want some free heritage advice, I’d recommend moving and restoring the old scorebox obscured by the Doug Walters Ashtray, or even better building an entrance underneath it. Maybe they’ve already copped this. Aspicked minds think alike.

10.48 Collingwood edges the unspuriously accurate McGrath, ct Gilchrist 27. 245 for 5.

Flintoff drives Lee for a thumping four behind square. At times he makes the game look so simple.

Read survives an imperious LBW appeal from Lee before his captain scampers him through for two leg byes. Next ball, snick to Gilchrist 258 for 6. Mahmood first ball an edged pull to Hayden in the gully. Ditto for 7.

Next over hat-trick ball to Flintoff, the Edgbaston derring-do commiseration pair. Fast, outside off-stump, Freddie watches it go by. An over or two later two driven fours, one nearly bisecting Umpire Billy Bowden with the sound of a high velocity anti-tank rifle. Simple game.

This morning before setting off, but after arranging to meet the head of the British Council in Australia I performed the simple task of polishing my shoes. It was immensely enjoyable, the tactile sensation of rubbing in the polish, then buffing the leather up to a half-way decent shine. A simple game, refreshingly so compared to complex things like e-mails, audio files, mobile phone tariff rates and 10.19 starts.

In essence cricket is simple too. The feel and sound of bat upon ball, willow upon leather, especially if the macau cane handle is in your hands. I loved that almost regardless of the outcome. Emotion has to be tempered to realise ambits.

Gunn & Moore

From water’s edge
to the middle of the ground.
grown straight, selected,
sawn, planed, sanded,
steel and grit balance
out any natural flaws
for the ideal blade
Not left to season
alone but cared for
Well-oiled resilient power
behind the maker’s name

roughed out, air-dried
cleft pressed moulded
and cut for the splice
Of macau cane thrice
rubbered and bound
wedged, clamped, glued
together in steady time
to face being in the middle

Easy in your hands
raise, step back, twiddle,
survey the field, take guard
Ready to do your best
and accept the future

Use wisely without fear
the ball is no part of me.

Flintoff at his best plays the game simply. This series he’s struggled with the bat, flailing in the main at balls he shouldn’t go for. He just taken five runs off a Clark over, leaving Harmison just one ball to face. Lbw 2. 282 for 8.

Enter the Monty heralded by Billy The Trumpet, to be dropped at slip by, yes, Langer. Even Tufnell was better in the field, he only dropped aitches on a regular basis.

Flintoff half-charges Clark to edge a spectacular but not overly difficult catch to Gilchrist – fifth of the innings, two more than you dropped, Justin. This is the worst stroke of an excellent innings by Flintoff. Not just playing through the V for crushing fours but craftily placed twos, one of the few England batsmen to appreciate the spaces offered by large Australian grounds. His 89 is nearly worth a century, close to a captain’s innings, just as he’s close but not quite close enough to being a good skipper. It’s Freddie going backwards, re-flowering into the player all Australia feared when he strode to the crease in 2005. Feared and admired.

Or something like that as sung by Shirley Bassey

Big Freddie

The minute you walked on the pitch
We could see you were a man of distinction, a real big cricketer.
Soft lad from Lancashire,
Would you let us whisper into your ear?
Stroke it between cover and point,
No need to throw your bat at every ball you see,
Hey big Freddie!
Hit a little six for me.

Would you like to have fun, fun, fun?
After they’ve won, won, won?
Thrash’em at their favourite pastime.
Sink their drinks for a good time.
.
The minute you walked off the pitch
We could see you were a man of distinction, a real big cricketer.
Soft lad from Lancashire,
You didn’t hear what we whispered in your ear.
Stroke it between cover and point,
No need to throw your bat at every ball you see,
Hey big Freddie!
Hey big Freddie!
Hey big Freddie!
Hit a winning six for me.

Warne does Panesar again in flight for another LBW, England all out 291, probably about at least fifty short of par on this wicket. Three of the top six got over forty, none made a century. QED

Australia face a single over before lunch, which makes t tal b ll cks of the t tal b ll cks of a 10.19 kick-off. Why not have lunch straight after England’s out, like the old days? Spurious accuracy and tv ad schedules, that’s why.

Talking of old days, I’m intrigued by the venerable roller used to roll wickets between innings. Apparently it’s about eighty years old which means it rolled the track before Bradman went out to play his first first class innings, and straight back in after collecting a duck.

The Don’s views on Australian pies aren’t known. Mine are. I take it all back. They don’t taste all the same, the market waiting for the special Pom flavour ‘Humble.’ Today, feeling peckish after an insufficient number of sandwich (one) I found myself in the inner sanctum of the members atop the Noble stand where queues are short to non-existant. Against my better judgement I fancied a pie. Let’s face it, Barry Humphries has immortalised this tasty on the Sydney Writers Walk in Circular Quay:-

I think that I could not espy
A poem lovelier than a pie.
A banquet in a single course
Blushing with tomato sauce

Mea Culpea. Fancying a pie with a difference I plumped for the Chicken and Vegetable. Bad move, for me, if not the chicken and the vegetable, because their presence within the crust seemed entirely nominal. Australian pies do not taste all the same. The beef ones are more or less edible. Balfour’s Chicken and Vegetable isn’t. One bite nearly had me spraying the entirety of Bay Three, the roller and the pitch – Fine projectile vomits from boundary to boundary. Inside a Balfour’s Chicken and Vegetable is reject material from the Alien films, a greenish gelatinous gristly goop of extraterrestial sweepings from the intergalactic slop-bucket at the Abbatoir At The End of the Universe. Nobody should be allowed, never mind forced to make, serve and least of all eat this crap. $4.20 straight into the bin marked highly dangerous industrial waste and pies. Balfour’s Chicken and Vegetable Pie is an offence against humanity which all Australia should rise up against. Were I ever to enter politics here I’d stand on half-way decent pies, but without much chance of success. Australians are proud, forgiving and ultimately drongo about their pies Bazza McKenzie’s lesser ego professes to love so much.

The guts of Australian pies
Puzzle other democracies.
Its electorate aren’t averse
To bull or a whole lot worse.

If the Australian pie industry, not to mention their cricket ground security and caterers off the pitch were to show the same dedication in the pursuit of quality as the Green Baggies do on, it would be far more of a pleasure even as a pom to watch them put us through the mincer.

Australia 87 for 1. Only wicket Langer playing with the same abandon he displayed in his slip catching, snicking one down the leg-side from Anderson, ct Read 27. Billy the Trumpet is reduced to playing the Grandstand and then Sports Report theme tunes – March of the Champions. My start of play stumps prediction of 214 for 4 would be a good result for England, even when Hayden, eschewing Melbourne perserverance, goes hard at a wide one from Harmison ct Collingwood 33. 109 for 2 at tea.

I watch David Gower, Nasser Hussein and David Lloyd bumble to Sky viewers back in England at four in the morning the difference between the two teams. Their hand gestures speak volumes, roughly translated ‘country mile.’ Elsewhere on the paddock, the Battle of the Tasches Handicap race is between Aussies dressed as blokes, and Poms in dresses. The ladies win hands down and go off beam, signal and course. Maybe that’s where we went wrong in our preparation. If only Freddie and the boys had dressed as women rather than played like them. Which is very unfair, not least to women cricket in England and Australia, where the England team still retain the Ashes (see Grace Road, one of the first entries on www.ashespoetry.net)

The Monty comes to the crease and Ponting falls to a fractional run-out direct throw from Anderson for 45, when set like a train. Shades of Pratt at Nottingham. 118 for 3. Clarke directs a Harmison lifter to Read for 11, before a rain break and stumps at 188 for 4. Interesting, still in the Australians’ favour.

Not that the press are there; too busy listening to Sir Richard Branson bang on about the Ashes urn staying in Australia. Three things:-

1. If the English team had made a decent fist of it, they’d not be having this debate.
2. Branson Pickle’s doing this to drum up trade for Virgin Blue, his new kid on the runway to Quantas for domestic air.
3. What’s it got to do with the price of Branson Pickle anyway? Could you imagine a Freddie Laker, or Lord King putting his pennethworth in this?

I admit I might be biased because another of Branson’s enterprises, Virgin Mobile screwed me royally in sending a replacement sim card for my drop-kicked mobile into the Torrens after Adelaide, and still owe me about forty bucks.

More seriously the Ashes Urn isn’t a trophy like the FA Cup; it’s a bequest, a gift from the Darnley estate to the MCC. To demand it as of right from the Marylebone Cricket Club would be like expecting any Australian cricketer to return their baggy green caps after they were dropped or retired.

John Howard, art collector and Australian Premier has backed Branson’s pickled scheme. Maybe the MCC could make it conditional on Aboriginal lands and rights similarly respected? Never mind the Hon Ivo Bligh, what the first Australian touring party to England of 1868, all aboriginals, would make of this is hard to guess. I think the Premier has misjudged the mood of the nation. Tonking the Poms is good, drinking beer is better:-

The Legend Of The Golden Tinnie

Aussie Bloke here

You all know the Legend Of The Golden Tinnie. Back some time in the last century, 1989 as a matter of fact, another Aussie bloke David Boon drank 52 tinnies flying in to thrash the Poms where it matters, and to bring back the Ashes. Except they didn’t, of course, because the Shirts at the MCC lost the pawn ticket yonks ago and could we have what is rightfully ours? Could we cocoa.

You’ve probably seen the brohoa in the paper (There’s only one – The Daily Strine) that the Ashes have come to Oz, just at the time when we didn’t hold them. Guess they must have found the pawn ticket. Took ’em three blokes and a special hermetically sealed container with its own seat in business class, by your leave, to get it here. You could’ve bunged it in an eskie and still have room for three dozen cold ones. Talking of which – I’ll get to that later. Three blokes to mind a four inch high urn? No wonder their manufacturing base is jiggered, couldn’t even manage a press-up in a multi-gym. If they ever decide to give the Elgin marbles back to Greece, they’d have to tow the whole bloody country there. And they’ll probably dob in a knighthood. Arise, Sir Ashes Urn KGB. Be a republican, it’s simpler. Almost as good as being a publican.

Now the pom who flew the Ashes here, Sir Richard Tim-Tam Milo-Milo Lamington-Lamington Branson-Pickle – who’s still a virgin despite or because of all those names – doesn’t want to bung em back. Typical pom, if you ask me, shonky bludger, can’t even trust their own kind. No surprise they lost them in the first place.

Which brings me to the Legend of The Golden Tinnie. Where the VB is it? Number 53, the tinnie Boonie couldn’t drink, the golden one, when all other tinnies are silvery.

The Poms must’ve got their grubby mits on that too.

So have any of you people got any idea where the Golden Tinnie might be?

And more to point, how to get it back before the Poms drink it, the Grail of Australia, the Antipodean Ambrosia, the elixir of life, strength and strinedom ….to win back the Ashes in 2009.

God help us.