Ashes Poetry

It feels weird. Sitting at home about to go to the cricket. I feel I should be somewhere else, in The Ivy Bush pub in Newport for Cardiff, relatives in Golder’s Green for Lord’s or a rented farmhouse in Worcestershire. Being at home, with a half-finished kitchen awaiting the return of the builders (all meant to be done and dusted before the series started) feels peculiar.

I imagine cricketers and their camp-followers (Barmy Army, Fanatics, Wags, press and media….) become used to living out of a suitcase. In a sense the game is their home or becomes one. It may be a major reason, together with shedloads of stress waiting in the pavilion, that professional crickets are prone to depression. Sadly Marcus Trescothick is one of a long line of such troubled cricketers, and good he’s enjoying his cricket and home life in Somerset.

Sandwiches ready, weather set fairish for Headingley, and why not select Banger for Headingley? Trescothick still is a class bat, and there are precedents stretching back to Cyril Washbrook, a selector selecting himself to open for England in 1956, got 96 too. You might almost pick Flintoff for his batting – he’s looked in increasingly good nick for the entire series – and there is a case to up him in the order. No real worries about stranding a batsman with the tail, England bat well and deep with Swann at nine, and of course it gives Fred more time to rest that knee. I’d bat him at five with licence to do serious damage.

I last watched cricket at Headingley towards the end of the last century. England were playing South Africa, and victory ensured a series win. The pace attack was Gough, Frasier and Cork, if memory serves, which the man of the match ajudicator assured us would serve England for years to come. Atherton opened for England but it was Butcher’s century which won the match if not the man of the match. The game went into the final day, following England’s draw at Manchester where I listened on test match special overlooking dolphins bask on the Firth of Spey (you can see them from the main stand at Inverness Caladonian’s ground) to Atherton and Stewart score big to save the game, and watched the last two days at Trent Bridge where everyone in the ground except the umpire heard Atherton snick Alan Donald to the keeper, which triggered the most hostile spell of quick bowling I’ve ever witnessed – if the rules of cricket permitted natural justice Donald would’ve gone right down the wicket and throttled Atherton’s brass neck like a broiler fowl. Hansie Kronje skippered SA, and only two of the team still play. The SA keeper Boucher, and a very young Flintoff who didn’t take a wicket but bagged a pair.

Today Flintoff isn’t playing either. The knee’s knacked, so Harmison’s in, which I like. Just seeing him practice makes you appreciate the lift he could get. Ricky called wrong (again) and England’ll bat. They’ve brought in Stuart Clark for Horitz which could be iffy were the wicket flat and slow. It’s moderately overcast, and though Hoggard reckons it won’t swing, it could especially with the ambient moisture from this week’s rain. Prediction 327-7 at stumps. Both teams could live with that.

Memo to self. Don’t make predictions when England win the toss and bat. 102 all out just after lunch………. Not quite sure how it happened. Many would blame my dongler. This receives internet via the mobile phone network. However there’s so much broadcast stuff satelliting its way into the ether I couldn’t – imagine a tweety-bird trying to cross a motorway full of roaring artics. It took me over an hour talking to Vodaphone’s Chris in technical suppport before we worked our way round it. By then it was sixty-odd for six ‘Is that bad?’ Chris asked, ‘I know  nothing about cricket.’ O joy, O bliss.

Australia bowled well. Out of their skins. Especially Stuart Clark of metronomic accuracy – can’t seem to remember an English batsman leaving any of his alone, although I”m sure they did.

Stuart Clark

Not that you’d notice him for seeing,
the sort of bloke in the office
who always comes to work on time
to a tidy desk all parts done efficiently
yesterday.
Pays the drinks kitty and sweepstake
promptly
and tells the sharpest stories about the bosses
secretly
(not that you notice him for seeing.) 

The sort of bloke troubled mothers of errant daughters
pray they’d bring home and yet leave them well alone.
That bank managers take to, perhaps trusting too much too.
Eyes that remember distant birthdays and colours of others eyes.
The sort of waiter you can ask what’s best on the menu,
tip well, and instinctively say thank you to,
and instantaneously forget in our ever-rushed lives
too busy to notice him for seeing.

Nothing too complicated nor too much
to do for others. As his arm comes over
batsmen fear any minor deviations
- not that you’d notice them for seeing.

S R Clark 3-18 (This poem published by Wisden 2007, page 130)

All bowled to the conditions, well up and on or about off-stump. Every edge carried and every carry stuck. Strauss was done by a stunning one hand pluck at third slip by Marcus North. Equally England didn’t bat well. Too many didn’t get into line and played too full drives. This was the time when the elbow should remain over the ball. 200, 250 was a bare minimum score; 102 is suicide. Four ducks, four out for single figures, extras third top score, you can’t have an Ashes series without a halfway indecent paddock-brained England collapse. We’ve been Siddled.

 To Siddle – a verb

I bowl
you score
we curse
you all

I bowl
I hit
you’re hurt
I sledge

I bowl
you glove
he catches
you’re out

I bowl
you miss
we shout
they give it
you’re out

I bowl
you’re XXXXed

P M Siddle 5-21

Harmison gets Kadich cheaply but slow in the field. Onions lbws Watson for another worthy fifty, that’s three in a row, getting into line, before Punter nearly runs himself out when Broad manages to get one to hold it own for a cast-iron lbw 78. 3- 144, two new batsmen, chance to get back from the outback and beyond. Broad lbws Hussey for ten. 4-151. Get   ‘em out for 200, 250, it’s still game on. I’ll eat my words about Broad as well as Siddle. The England attack have taken my daughter’s words to heart. In one way or another, they’ve bowled like stink. Now Clarke and North, the Edgbaston saviours are at the crease. A relatively sober Barmy Army fires up.

4-179. Beer towers and snakes develop, mimicking the cranes building the new Carnegie Stand, with its motto ‘How to get pissed and influence people.’ Probably more glasses in the snakes and towers than runs in England’s first innings as Clarke cuts another Harmison long-hop or hope to the point boundary. England have bowled far too short by half: I can’t remember an England player on the back foot this morning, except metaphorically, of course. The replay screen announces all public bars are now shut while the stewards close in on the wild slimy beer glass snakes which fly into a million pieces, a bit like the England top order to a round of boos that surpasses those vouchsafed for Ponting. If those-that-be want to curtail snakes, just say no further beers without an earlier glass returned and checked against the four drink squares on the back of the ticket. (see http://www.ashespoetry.net/2009/08/06/edgbaston-beyond-boundaries/) Saves collecting the empties for recycling.

Harmison brains Clarke, which brings out the medics and replacement helmets. Serious stuff. No one likes fast bowling – except fast bowlers and their team-mates. Credit Harmison for being the first to console Clarke – showing far more speed than is his wont in the field. Big appeal for glove, bat, pad catch, turned down, next ball smacked through  covers. No quarter asked or given, no half measures either

4-196 I keep thinking Australia have scored very slowly today before remembering England have already had their first knock. Entertainment ends four overs shy. Can’t see why. Driving home the anger edges in. Was it as bad as Adelaide, 2nd knock? No, because the bowling was good on a pitch that helped. Throughout the day I read the signs on the Rugby Stand opposite – Dent Steel…

Dent steel
pummel resolve
grind hope
cleave partnerships
hammer blows
sandblast egos
shatter morale
catch catches
file appeals
cast dies
hewer luck
mould chances
anneal fortune
enamel success
forge victory
dent their steel
till it rusts

www.dentsteel.co.uk

Tweet by Tweet Commentary (till battery gave up the ghost with England)

“Sitting in lounge at Kuala Lumpur & saw score update on CNN. Wow!! No Freddy, No England. Will sleep well back to Oz Neilometer on the up.”

“Told u Bopara should’ve been dropped Strauss strong Broad unlucky Cook looked good Jimmy 2 save us can’t escape singer man XX yr daughter”

23% battery left on netbook but more sarnies than English wickets. Connie Huk exorting England on the replay screne too hollow to laugh.

72-6 Gremlins gunge Vodaphone broadband and England. Clarke’s the oldest swinger in town dead-heads Headingley wall-flowers wilting at lunch

90-7 Swann gets a duck caught fishing by Clarke off Siddle who twangs Harmie’s elbow and helmet. Welcome back to test match cricket, son 7%

98-7 Sid Vicious Siddle pounds past Prior on appeal before bagging Harmie the monk-like Prior removes cowl to mope bald pate. Jimmy survives

98-8 a few drops brush my arms ‘Stand up if yer 1-0 up’ roar the Western Terrace. Maybe a chorus of ‘Only rain can save Australia now.’ 6%

102-9 2.15pm Duckless Jim scores again before gloving Siddle ‘Bars shut till 3.30′ reads replay screen will England last longer than battery

102-10 Hissing Sid Viscious Siddle gloves Onions first ball. On a hat-trick. Two poms into double figures, extras third highest at 17. Tata