Ashes Poetry

At ten-thirty today I’m to be interviewed by Ronnie Barber of BBC Radio about what words poets don’t like. Any that end in -ly except sly, since they’re adverbs which means the verb isn’t doing its job well enough, and generally used by politicians and the like to evade rather than seek truth and meaning (”Basically” “Absolutely” “Honestly” “Categorically”…) Here’s a list of those phrases I’m tired of hearing in and on cricket. It’s almost a poem:-

Phrases we could do without

The spirit of cricket
Playing with a straight bat
On a sticky wicket
The summer game
Test match minnows
Bowled the pm a googly
Put up the shutters
The home of cricket
Rearguard action
Stout defence
Play up, play up, play the game
A ripple of polite applause
Turn your arm over
Not troubling the scorers
The Golden Era
A captain’s knock
A batsman’s game
It isn’t cricket
Rain stops play

Departure delayed to evade Kamikaze Honda Civics, and also I still don’t believe the score. Fear is arriving at Lord’s to discover the Australians are 222 for 1, just as I wanted to go back at close of play in Cardiff to verify we’d super-fluked a draw. At baggage check-in I’m asked ‘Any booze?’ ‘No, just the scent of victory.’ In nearly forty years of going to test matches I’ve yet to see the Aussies lose.

Australia stuffed up. Great players however great need to accede conditions, yesterday wasn’t for cross-bat shots. Tiger Woods missed the cut in a harsh-skied Open, new hip oldie Tom Watson is a shot from the lead. Maybe he should think about starting to play cricket. The soap opera’s back story’s starting to warm up. Horitz, the Aussie only twirly-man, has a jiggered finger, the 75 year not losing streak at the home of cricket is about to go down the tubes, and the Ashes in jeopardy again. Don’t bother with Kim and Kath as the new pace attack, bring back Mr Peroxide, WARNIE!

215-10 yet another edge, another catch England field well but leave the field holding off disrobing the sheer silken allure of the follow-on. Lord High Protector of the Commonwealth definitely not tempted under a Simpsons sky – Bart would’ve made ‘em bat again, unlike sister Lisa, while Homer reckons cricket exists purely for beer drinking, like many in a crowd.

But we’re at Lord’s and everyone’s quaffing white wine, Pimms, spritzers and champagne. Which the cricket isn’t. 111-2 Horatio time, tightest bowling of the game, and twin dashers  KP Bopara still look like they couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo. Bowl ‘em a piano, Australia, see if they can play that. Geoff Boycott will be enjoyin’ it, though, so it may be time for the Serious Cricket Watchers Association (Two Laws: 1. Watch cricket 2. Be serious. Any contraventions will be treated with the utmost levity) to launch into the SchizoCricket Hall of Fame, the two Sir Geoffreys. You need to imagine a world where two Boycotts spend all their time in each other’s company – a bit like Dennis Wise finding an argument with himself in a empty house cubed. “My granny could play that wi’ a stick o’ rhubarb.” “Your granny could play that wi’ a stick o’ rhubarb? Rhubarb, my granny could stick hersel’ on that wicket till cows come home an’ play it wi’ her eyes shut an’ a time-worn cliche.” “Put wood in hole, don’t wan’ it too draughty down corridor of uncertainty.” “Never mind the avenues of improbability.” “An’ the motorway of implausibility” “Aye, that where playin’ test match bowlin’ wi’ a stick o’ rhubarb gets yer.” “Aye” “Aye” “Aye.” 122-2, clouding over, do the sun-gods like sensible battin?

By the end of the day England are over five million ahead and Australia will have to bat out about two light-years to save the game. I smell something in the air….

The Scent of Victory

ethereal, a slight aromatic
adrift in time, fainter than dew
left after blades flens sward
before its possibility

earlier days’ traces linger;
stale ales, linament,
sweat and certified under-arm deodorant
fails to mask an exotic musk,
rare even to memories, dreams
beyond experience

sniffed with leather
when it edges their bats
or pummelled by ours;
with luck to taste on lips
as they lick fingers
before each dries with anxiety

you’ll get there, don’t worry,
target set, linger in anticipation,
patient ardour will leave them broken
and down. no post-coital cigarette of a win
at the fag-end of a lost series,
breathe deep the heady scent of victory.

 

Tweet by Tweet Commentary

At baggage check-in I’m asked ‘Any booze?’ ‘No, just the scent of victory.’
178-8 Jimmy gives Hauritz three inswingers, who edges the impending outswinger for four. Broad’s infatuation with bouncers knows no bounds.
196-9 Enter Onions more bounce than Anderson Horitz edges slip Collingwood pouch. Australia in a dill of a pickle one prawn shy of a barbie
204-9 Scoring by snicked fours through slips 22 follow-on target. “We’ll get ‘em in edges” Fred paws ground: Bold hero saved for enforcement
215-10 yet another edge, another catch England field well but leave the field holding off disrobing the sheer silken allure of the follow-on

61-1 Cooke lbw Hauritiz 32 playiing around pad again this time to a slow-mo slow. Lunchtime Lord’s still, a picture of satiated expectation.
72-2 Lord High Protector edges their spinner, enter El Pietersono Will he be all too cavalier or dulce doloroso? A lofted onside 4 tells all
88-2 Punter recalls Hilfenhaus to flamingo KP, good captaincy then spills Bopara, qua precursor Waugh 2 Gibbs ‘You’ve just dropped the Ashes’
100-2 KP and Ravi look right dodgy
111-2 Horatio time KP Bopara still look like they couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo Bowl em a piano Australia see if they can play that
130-2 Bopara sent upstairs, catch not given 147-3 more bat than pad, caught at short leg Horitz taken all three wickets a spinner none rates
169-3 three foured full tosses loosen shackles within chains England’s Achilles achilles leads to limp twixt wickets limping towards victory
174-4 Pietersen goes fishing, caught behind. Prior edges then beaten as Siddle makes the ball leave both ways, but not at once. 391 ahead
215-4 Prior going like a train derails Aussie nascent hopes. Each run more ferries a terminal certainty of winning and losing ever closer.
253-4 Prior high speed fifty twist-drills hammer blows into green baggies heart & a planning application for new Jerusalem at Lords.
260-5 Prior run out 61. Planning application deferred
301-5 Five hundred ahead, ground emptying in the certainty of the future. Limited edition set of Green Baggy teapots for sale on field now.