Ashes Poetry

Flintoff mission to miss thermos bumble lee’s ponting skier caught out agnew antipodes…
….so what is the opposite of inside out? Outside in?? No. Right way round, of course.

Today’s cricket front-pager in The Sprats Grauniad is Freddie missing the bus to visit Ypres last weekend. (If you want to look at cricket, poetry and war, try http://www.ashespoetry.net/2009/07/08/one-day-we-will-lose-2/) The soft lad slept in, and the press thought he might be on the sauce again – the first para above is hung-over predictive texting let loose…. I’m writing this staring at Derby Roundhouse on platform 6 waiting for the Birmingham train. It’s on my old fujitsu personal organiser which has hardly had an outing since the 5-0 Ashes strinewash 2006-7 down-under. The predictive text function brings up memories – as I type ‘me’ of ‘memories’ up comes ‘Melbourne’ – 106,000 in the MCG to watch England go 4-0 down, one to play, inside three days. Painful memories if you’re an English cricket fan, (but not nearly as painful as those who have suffered loss from war.) Of course Freddie has problems getting up, he’s such a big bloke it must take an age for all of him to wake up all at once. Then again, let’s consider ourselves lucky that we can castigate him for sleeping in ahead of those who’ll never rise again.

If I’d have been Freddie, I’d have  slept in and celebrated too. When the press haven’t been on Flintoff’s back, his ankles and knees have given way under the strain of his massive action. To go under the surgeon’s knife and arduous rehab thrice is bloody hard work, so if he misses the bus to visit Ypres, he may, in the words of skipper Strauss, ’stuffed up,’ but does anyone who isn’t looking for copy to fill a paper really give a stuff? When all is said and done, it’s just a game, which war, not least WWI, isn’t.

 Simon Jones is the player I feel sorry for. He’s gone through as much surgery, rehab and agony as Flintoff, yet hardly played since 2005, and is  out for yet another season. His late reverse inswinger which did Michael Clarke shouldering arms at Old Trafford was my memory of the series – the batter’s sheer look of disbelief hearing the death-rattle behind. England won because they had four good quicks which meant there was no let-up even after the ball became old. No one has yet to replace Simon Jones.

“Aussies rocked as Lee ruled out” is The Metro back page headline picked up on the train from Matlock to Derby. Tough on Binger to tear a rib muscle: the fast bowler’s fear, so easy to do, so long to heal. Probably done in rediscovering reverse swing as he scalped five Young Lions. “Take five and eat your heart out, Dave Brubeck,” I wrote, referring to the 1950s jazz classic in 5/4 rondo time. Reverse swing, googlies and doosras are the bowlers’ jazz. ‘Schragemusik’ (trans: jazz music) was the Luftwaffe term for the angled upward-firing cannons fitted to night-fighters, which radared under RAF Lancs and other heavy bombers to shoot them from the night via an unprotected underbelly. Gone without even realising death was beneath them. ‘Stress’ said Ashes hero Keith Miller, ‘is flying a Mosquito over enemy territory with two Messerschmidts on your arse.’  We’re lucky to live in a land and time of relative peace to enjoy sport just as sport.