Ashes Poetry

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.