Everdismal Fletcher was more dismal than ever. Inside his gloomy hotel room he wondered how he could revive his own and his team’s spirits for the last two Tests. His Christmas Eve stocking lay empty. ‘A test indeed,’ he said to himself ‘we need poetry!’ Turning to his regular bedside companion “The Coach’s Story: Ashes [...]
21nd December 2006, Fremantle
Don’t think I’m the right bloke to talk about spending Christmas anywhere. Someone who’s a lapsed atheist of jewish descent isn’t go to go overboard on the holy trinity son of god born in Bethlehem thing.
By and large I’m a pretty jovial chap most of the year, but Christmas with its enforced [...]
This is for cricket lovers, especially English cricket supporters, who wonder why the Ashes were lost so readily after taking so long to regain.
Australians need not go much further than this. Winning is joy shared by all, except the loser. Loss is more private, if not personal….
First few overs Pietersen and Flintoff play and miss, then suddenly just before the half-hour Freddie goes beserk. Hitting straight and hard, no meaningless wafts. Thirteen off Lee’s first over, thirty-odd in two dozen or so balls, three hundred up. Enter Warne.
Forget Dr Fiffle-Faffle’s fiffle-faffle.
Best hope is the poms to bowl like drains and bat like kings, relying on Ponting’s Declaration Manifest to eke out a draw.
144- 2 another Ponting century and Aussie win in the offing, when he drives at a quick one from Harmison ct Jones 75. Hope once more springs eternal.
On the way in I bump into a waist-coated Liverpudlian widow from Adelaide and Paul Burnham, capo of The Barmy Army. ‘Where have you been?’ he asks. Busy [...]
A 11.30 kick off is leisurely, certainly compared to 10am at The Gabba. For fans this makes a big difference. It means more drinking in the evening, and yet more drinking in the morning too.
All confusion – the tickets say 10.30 start, the official Cricket Australia official Ashes Tour Book 11.00, we kick off at 11.30. The Waca (not Aborigine but Western Australian Cricket Association) is ramshackle. More Headingley with decent weather and palm trees. If The Gabba was the Strineship Enterprise, then The Waca is Thunderbirds Are Go. [...]
For the England cricket team and supporters, the first two test matches of this series have been the worst of times, and the worst of times.
The game at The Gabba was bad enough, the team clearly underprepared, but they’d batted well from the second innings at Brisbane till the last morning at Adelaide where they [...]
