Ashes Poetry

Thank you Yorkshire County Cricket Club for seat M446 in the Upper North East Stand, the best view in town, just over the bowler’s arm and hardly any of the field obscured. Headingley’s improved immensely since 1998, the last time I was here. The Western Terrace, late and unlamented, is replaced by the Western Stand, modern and pleasant with plenty of shelter underneath. My favourite spec, at the Kirkstall Lane end is gone too all temporary gantries, scaffolding and construction apparatus. To think just after 1998 there was a move to leave Headingley in favour of an enlarged motorway service station somewhere between Leeds and Wakefield.

I like Headingley. It’s a proper cricket ground because you can walk all around it. Even better it has the rugby ground next door, sharing a stand, with the pitch full of the suits’ motors – black VW Toureg’s with tinted windows, 4×4 Raybans, VW, the people’s car? – overblown, like a pack of English rugby forwards. I take delight in knowing I’ll be away in NuNuChuggalino, our Y-reg Corsa, parked five minutes walk from the ground. Everyone should walk, especially when they’re out, and I can’t figure out why cricket spectators won’t when who they’re watching will amble at least several miles a day, even from slip to slip.

You can tell I’m trying to avoid yesterday’s cricket. The next time England play Australia at Headingley we’re in for another hammering – at Rugby League, never mind the VW Touregs  (And what sort of name is that? I can’t think of a car more unlike a Bedoin tribesman.)

Still avoiding. All part of the grieving process – surprise, disbelief, anger, avoidance, denial, more surprise, disbelief, anger, avoidance and denial till you accept we got stuffed. Ian Bishop is just below signing all the Asda Kwik cricketers autograph books, temples whitening, specs hanging from his neck looking for all like an elder statesmen but still lithe enough to have bowled a decent spell yesterday. He’s writing a message with each signature (unlike Nasser Hussein whose moniker’s the briefest nurdle of the nib – the pen’s edgier than the blade, Nas.)

Ten minutes to go, ground half-full, no avoiding it now. Forget the five-thirty fire alarm, Prior’s back spasm, Flintoff’s fitness, these things happen to happen all the time. Get on with it. The Australians prepared for Headingley. Their batsmen practiced playing in swing conditions, as did their bowlers – what better net bowlers could you have than Hilfenhaus and Clark? Did England? One thing for sure, it’s easy enough to assess which team’s brittle, and which is resilient.

There is a part in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited when Charles Ryder, the narrator, describes the pain of being hurt in the same emotional place twice. A bruise being bruised again. At 82-5 second knock all England must feel that pain. Bad enough Australia made 455, effectively sealing the game. To bat again and collapse again so brutally is the second percussive trauma upon trauma. And they/we were doing so well, 58-0 all four quicks seen off, Ponting micro-managing at the bowler’s end (you know when Punter’s getting really worried – watch for the teapot elbows and then the fingers to the lips) around a dozen overs to go, not scoring too quickly but we could perhaps should get to stumps without losing a wicket. ….”One thing for sure, it’s easy enough to assess which team’s brittle, and which is resilient.”

There are technical reasons, which Sir Geoffrey Boycott explained ad nauseam on Test Match Special according to my daughter and wife, who had thought sledging was what fielders did to prevent fours. Fundamentally England players don’t get into line. Fatal against a Mitchell Johnson on form. Watching Watson is instructive, a makeshift opener, he gets into line and made three successive fifties. He came in for Hughes, the one Australian bat who doesn’t get into line. Even more instructive is watching the Kwik Cricket batting, all leg-side slogs from wickets arranged so they go into the stands. Crowd-pleasing, but not one shot in three tests through the off-side elbow high. The next generation of England cricketers not getting into line. God knows what Sir Geoffrey thought having been inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame with Trueman and Rhodes, nor Iron Mike Atherton, a solitary figure walking from commentary box to pavilion at tea and the close of play. Each of them got into line. It doesn’t look good.

At 50-0 my poem of the day was ‘In the Middle of a Stand’ switching from batsmen’s and fielder’s parleys at the wicket to spectators in the stands. The ink dried in my pen. You’ve doubtless become bored with my banging on about the incessant ‘C’mon England’ on the replay screens, exhortations from Boris Johnson, Stephen Fry, Connie Huk…. (let’s make Paul Collingwood Mayor of London, Ian Bell compere QED and Ravi Bopara Blue Peter) and Jerusalem at the head of each session. Premature triumphalism, which is a polysyllabic way of articulating total bollocks. It can only distract players from the task at hand, who already have to play Australia not only on the pitch but increasingly within their own heads….

… I’ve cheated again. An unholy prediction of the 2006-7 series, from the Ashes Poetry basement tapes (the ones that didn’t get on the 2006-7 website) is The Bloke Up Your Arse. Written before going to Oz in 2006 to get more of a feel for Aussie sporting mentality, lingo and to reprise The Man in The Glass originally written in 1934 by American Peter ‘Dale’ Wimbrow Senior and used by Zimbabwean Duncan Fletcher, England coach to motivate the team at the final test in 2005 against Australia (The Coach’s Story: Ashes Regained, Duncan Fletcher….. It worked then, along with the weather and Warnie dropping a dolly off KP, and the Aussies have their own version of The Man in The Glass – GHL or Good Hard Look.)

The final verse is the killer, the final line the clincher –  They can’t cheat the green baggies between their ears.

The Bloke Up Your Arse

For it isn’t your sheila or mucker or strife
Whose judgment gets right up your arse.
The bastard whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one sledging you back to the past.

Don’t come the Plum Warner or W G
And make out you’re real dinki di,
The bloke up your clacker’ll drop you down dunny
If you can’t squiz him right in the eye.

The dial to appease, bugger the MCC,
Will voodoo your quince to take the final Test.
We’ll sledge you till you’ve karked it, RIP
- ’cos us Aussies’ll have rippered the rest.

Poms cringe before playing matches,
Shonky bludgers let loose the bowels of fear:
No drama, dead certs to throw up the Ashes,
They can’t cheat the green baggies between their ears.

 

Tweet by Tweet Commentary – poms with a nervous disposition should look away now

4-208 Second over in, two fours, just con-trails in the sky, not even rain may save Australia from their avowed Ashes destiny at Headingley.

4-221 Jimmy bowls the Pup perfect pitched-up outswinger, going late but eighteen hours too late in the proceedings. Ground full, murmuring

4-237 Clarke starts flashing, North has a word, immaculate off-drive To paraphrase Tom Waits, if you want to bat well you better get in line

4-251 Century partnership Western Stand chants Michael Vaughan, my Lord Might as well as halejuah Wilfred Rhodes Lord Hawke and Ilkley Moor

4-261 Twin-engined turbo-prop, flaps and undercart down coming into land at Leeds/Bradford, got more chance of taking a wicket than England.

4-264 Swann to bowl. Will Clarke try to Edgbaston him out of the match? Decent first maiden, Strauss micro-managing from the guru Ponting.

4-274 Lord High Micro-Manager Strauss only bloke in sun-hat rest caps. Missing Lucy Mabel Atwell Freddie in field, not just for dress sense

4-289 replay screen Buxton a drop of pure England going down the drain. Onions to be barbequed into npower Ashes Product placement rules.

4-300 North 50 8 overs to new ball 15 minutes lunch Swann still niggling North, Clarke cruising. Put the Bet Fair Blimp onto bowl, Straussie

5-303 just when England staring down both barrels, Onions lbs Clarke 93. In Oz Neilometer still set fair with Vegemite rosy cheeks all aglow

5-318 Harmie sprays down leg-side, four bye-byes to fan’s Jerusalem. Give William Blake a bowl. New ball Harmie cramps Haddin on hook 6-323.

6-324 Onions in for Anderson as new pie-chucker Does this mean Jimmy and Broad have had their chips for bowling Yorkshire Puddings at Leeds?

6-334 Harmie gloves Johnson to fly overheard North hardly magnetic: late late show bid in Bill Lawry look-alike contest England bowl better

6-344 Swannee also in sun-hat – is he next Lord High Micromanager of all Engerland. Sun gone in and ball starts to wobble. Australia doesn’t

6-350 North blats three 4s, England bowling best so far, new ball & high cloud, fast accurate and dangerous – a strumpet’s period, too late?

6-352 “Get well soon Freddie” light plane banners overhead http://www.mumtaz.co.uk/ Lord Gower of Swish and John Morris not at the controls.

6-356 http://www.mumtaz.co.uk/ plane down in flames from Gooch & Gatting 4×40mm Flak Cannone. Onions has Johnson in a pickle stuck on seven.

6-357 Broad for Harmison first ball long hop square cut four All pressure gone. England still think North can’t play off-side Johnson off 7

6-361 npower loft insulation ad in drinks break, about preventing skiers when hitting on the up. Johnson 2×4 Onions.Sun out ball now unnewed

6-374 Swann first ball down leg-side, four, second spun away from Johnson. Third arm ball shout for LB Last ball too short cut for four more

7-393 just when poms can’t buy a wicket on e-bay Johnson hooks Broad straight down Bopara’s throat

7-393 Peter Siddle looks surprisingly innocent in a batting helmet May well be expecting some retributive short stuff bowled 1st ball 8-394.

8-406 North’s 100 six over cow corner off Swann R U watching KP? Lead 304 At least England won’t be asked to follow on. Why Strauss batted?

8-417 Clarke sixes Swann straight over the cameras, and another brace over square. For you viewers at home it beats being hit in the box.

8-439 Fanatics pipe up “R U Holland in disguise?” If only Clark plays on for an uncomplicateed 32 leaving Broad 5-91 Strauss won’t delay tea

10-445 but Strauss does and North holes out to long on. Twenty minutes for England to figure out how to erase 342 deficit Extra bat rubbers?

 

2-0 Talking to Yorkshire cheese-lovers (none called Wallace) reckon 102-2 at stumps They being Yorkshire cheese-lovers think four in the bag

4-0 two no-balls. To paraphrase Wilfred Rhodes, just induced into ICC Hall of Fame, we’ll get them in no-balls. Strauss cuts square for four

Notts County 3 Bradford 0 That should raise a cheer among the locals while the Western Stand play with their balls before they’re confiscated

17-0 two tarty fours from Cooke (fur coat no knickers) look good but not fully in control of stroke. Clark limbering up to give acid test.

18-0 Western Stand raising the volume if not the tone. All very prep school, mid-night feasts after lights out, trying to rag the prefects.

25-0 Oz bowling budgie-smuggler tight. Will Mitchell Johnson deliver pies with Onions? Nearly beheads Strauss Cooke finds it hot in kitchen.

28-0 Drinks Break – only if the plastic glasses split?

46-0 Johnson meeting out the short stuff, Cooke and Strauss try to hook, voluntary euthenasia with two Oz morticians set deep for the shot.

50-0 17 to 1 odds on a draw. Worth a punt to get up Punter’s nose. Yorkshire Cheese Lovers delighted and not just with (Yorkshire) cheese.

58-1 Strauss, Lord High Protector of England and her Commonweath LBW. Bopara ditto next ball, Bell in on a hat-trick, plays and misses Ooer!

67-3 Bell c Ponting b Johnson 3 Fanatics tell England & Barmy Army “You’re shit and you know you are” A very rare Australian understatement.

74-4 Collingwood lbw Johnson 4 Gloomiest prognostications of Yorkshire Cneese Lovers prove all too true Too many cats will be kicked tonite

78-5 Cook cooked. Netbook hibernates before battery gives up ghost which England have done