“Sheffield has never much cared for its history and buildings, and one day it will regret it” Sheffield Telegraph 1907.

“Darkness insists that Sheffield is a city, a metropolis; daylight reduces it to its component parts, to a series of bloated villages, unfolding across the undulations, linked only by sewers and roads. Perhaps this is all Sheffield has become: an infrastructure in search of a city, a system of services and administrative units sprawling across an intractable landscape.”
Richard Burns, The Guardian 1991.

Unlike Adelaide, Perth has denied its grand design. True the civic vista along the Swan River still exists, but that’s about it. For the rest, it is a hodge-podge of high-risers and malls dotted here and there without rhyme or reason, as though the civic planning authorities after a good night out came back to the office, stuck a map of the city on the wall and threw darts at it backwards over their shoulders. Where they stuck in, new development. It is appalling.

You can see glimpses of the 1890s to 1920s Perth here and there, rather like valuable antiques in a scrapyard. But the original gold-rush boom town, which all Australia, never mind Western Australia, admired, has been destroyed, buried and gone.

Worse it’s been replaced by the worst of modernist male architecture.

This is the Fire Station. If ever a building wore raybans, this is it.

More recently Perth planners have acknowledged some sort of past but instead of locating and refining it, it’s just a mantelpiece ornament.

This building is going up next to Rayban Fire Station. It gets the Totally Naff Retro-Facadism Award, and all the architects and planners involved in this slur upon their profession should be neutered to ensure no progeny devise anything similar.

They should also do penance by looking after homes and children for at least the time it takes to design and build this thing. You see, Perth is Malesville.

Outside St Martin’s Business Centre, another phallic tower, this piece of pub(l)ic art is a monument to two centuries of businessmen. Forget the glass ceiling, women, you can’t even get through the door.

The way Perth works reflects this abysmal architecture and city planning. There is no public transport to its International Airport. In case that didn’t sink in, or you think I’ve made a gross typo, there is no public transport to its International Airport. Just a moment, congestion, global warming…..

Service is dire, almost as bad as England on a bad day. ‘That bad, eh?’ Not just my opinion, official surveys state levels of service in Perth are the worst in Australia. They put it down to the mining industry – West Australia is booming on providing the iron ore for far east economic development – taking the best people. Not so sure myself. Why isn’t the same true in Brisbane? I reckon it’s something to do with the extreme isolation of Western Australia. Not just the two hour time difference, but a basically male dominated society. There is nothing soft, cuddly, warm, graceful, feminine or caring about Perth, all the key attributes which lie behind good service. In Malesville feminism doesn’t seem to have happened. Apparently Brits like to retire to Perth, maybe those who like a world where men are men and women don’t count.

The construction sites are accidents waiting to happen. No one wears hard hats, no one obeys basic rules. Here’s a site supervisor who can’t be arsed to do up his bootlaces.

I used to be a field archaeologist and was a bit of a tartar about health and safety, hence no serious accidents on any site I was responsible for. Perth needs to do up its bootlaces and get its act together.

It wouldn’t be so bad, (well no, it is that bad) except a dozen miles downriver is Fremantle, Perth’s harbour, which remains a truly beautiful city. Imagine Tilbury and London reversed and you’ve got the picture.

Wouldn’t you love seeing this at the start and end of your working day as you took the train to work?

If cities are works of art, pace Plato, Adelaide is Athens. Whatever Perth was, it’s now become Sparta. It needs a Lysistrata to withold sex, especially to its architects and planners in order to bring any sense to the place. Aristophanes knew what he was talking about. In Lyistrata the men wore phalluses. In Perth they wear high-risers.

If as A N Whitehead said, the history of western philosophy are footnotes to Plato, then the history of western civilisation are scatological references to Aristophanes. Methinks the difference between contemporary Perth and Adelaide may well have something to do with the lack of (phallo-centric) party politics in Adelaide’s local government.

Next stop Melbourne and Sydney.

Previous Performances

We did better than the last time down under. The 2002-3 team lasted eleven days in their attempt to wrest the Ashes. At least this time it was fifteen. Whether this understated fact is considered significant probably depends upon individual reader’s expectations.

Selection - overall tour party

The tour party selection was good. No one has said no one who went shouldn’t have and no one who didn’t go should’ve. Maybe Robert Key can consider himself unlucky not to replace Marcus Trescothick instead of Ed Joyce, and some would argue that Neil Broad should’ve been called up once the pace attack seemed so toothless, but I can’t remember the basic selection being so right, and agreed to be right. Odd that the media hasn’t pointed this out, or may be it isn’t…

Effort and The Media

The team did try their hardest. The Daily Mail and other papers to bang on about too many parties etc is, to use a very technical phrase most readily understood by those in the media, bollocks. Not only is it bollocks, it’s hypocritical bollocks. This is the same paper that praised this team to the hilt and beyond, doubtless enthusing about Flintoff’s drunken state the morning after the night before regaining the Ashes.

Not only is it hypocritical bollocks, it is also lamentable bollocks. A common problem all England teams in all sports face is media intrusion and expectation. This in turn creates stories which don’t exist. My missus tells me that there is a dressing room fall-out because Flintoff doesn’t like Panesar. This story doubtless arose because Fletcher said he wanted Panesar in at Adelaide, whereas apparently Flintoff didn’t, thus breaking the cardinal rule that individual selector’s opinions are never ever discussed in public (it is a corporate decision) In turn journalists turn this into a “Freddie hates Monty” story, and regardless of substance it is difficult to deny (”Duncan denies Freddie hates Monty”) Can you imagine the Australian press running such a story, regardless of how well or badly the team was doing? No. And if any paper tried, they’d be tried and found guilty of that most heinous sin, not backing the team.

There’s no story in the first place, since there is no reason any two players should like or dislike each other. They are professional cricketers working together to do a job of work, and all professionals work with others they may or may not choose to otherwise be with.

Talking of being professional, sports journalists should stick to sport, rather than invade personal space. The hypocritical (does journos’ personal lives ever come under press scrutiny?) and lamentable (does invasion of privacy help England teams?) bollockry that fills far too many column inches does nothing to support England teams. Worse it leaves less space for true sports journalism. The ability of the Australian media to support their team in times of difficulty is diametrically opposed by the ability of their English counterparts to do the exact opposite. Stick to the facts of the matter at hand, and write about them well.

Efficiency of Effort

England did try hard, very hard, if at times they were exceptionally trying.

We are now getting to the facts of the matter at hand. As detailed in ‘Post Mortem’ after the Adelaide Test, England teams handicap themselves by using a mental model of Anticipated Outcomes – ‘We have won the Ashes, therefore we shall keep them’ which is particular weak opposed to the Australian model of realising desires ‘Let’s get the Ashes back.’

Both the England team and media used this model, as have the England soccer teams and press with the World Cup since 1966.

In this instance, it meant a complete reversal of the strategy that won them the Ashes. Instead of going hard, realistically attacking at all times, outdoing the Aussies at their own game, England were excessively defensive, keen only to protect what they held, not to grind the opposition into the dust. Doubtless this strategy was discussed and agreed by England team management and was the primordinal error, since it made it almost impossible for them to retain the Ashes.

Australian Conditions

Insufficiently taken into account. “We beat them last series, therefore we should this series.” Something which is quite hard to see on the box, the increased size of the grounds – which makes finding gaps different, and hitting boundaries and going arial harder – and the different nature of the wickets – more bounce, less lateral movement – means you need to adapt your game, never mind the sun and playing away. No amount of net practice will provide compared to time in the middle. In other words all the team were still experimenting during the First Test at the Gabba, and some still are at the Waca. (Not sure if Geraint Jones will ever have the game to bat successfully in Australia.)

Schedule

This comes down to schedule. England are playing not enough yet too much cricket. Before The Gabba they needed two hard four day State games in order to ‘hit their straps.’ Presumably this could have been arranged. It seems tour management believed this was unnecessary and also undesirable. In other words they underestimated the task at hand because they were already anticipating the outcome of retaining the Ashes.

Selection - match by match

Injuries and absences did make a difference, but not to the extent of a 2-1 winning side already 3-0 down. Put it another way, even with Siinon Jones, Trescothick and Vaughan avaiable, the negative strategy still would have played into Australian hands. The selection of Geraint Jones and Giles ahead of Read and Panesar was part and parcel of this negative ethos. As curiously was Flintoff as Captain – a great player in 2005, therefore best choice of captain in 2006-7. You’re only as good as the next ball.

Overall Rod Marsh is right. England have gone backwards since 2005. The question is how to go forwards again.

Where Next

Here I wish the solutions were as readily identifiable as the problems. I ‘d go for achieving quality and potential. This would mean selecting players on the basis of the prime part of their game (ie Panesar and Read rather than Giles and Jones) It would also mean hard warm-up games so that the team was match rather than net-hardened. Taken together this should mean England are as well prepared as Australia. Together with an aggressive attacking attitude, playing to win, it should mean that England has a fighting chance. Without it there is no hope except relying on outrageous amounts of luck.

It’ll be interesting to see whether England play with a different ethos in the last two tests.

Fifty Ways
(after Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover – Paul Simon)

It’s bad to be defeated
All too easily.
We travelled here with such high hopes
To end in misery.
It could have been much worse though how
I cannot see.
There must be fifty ways
To lose the Ashes.

A negative strategy made it
Harder to win,
And by the same token opponents
Reckon you’re about to give in.
We bent right over
So you could give our arse a good kicking,
There must be fifty ways
To lose the Ashes.
Fifty ways to lose the Ashes.

Play the Australians.
Pick Geraint Jones
Ahead of Chris Read.
Don’t prepare for the Gabba,
Ignore Monty Panesar,
Madness at Adelaide,
Led t(w)o the Waca.

Over a hundred thousand
Have paid to be at the MCG.
Even a fourth Aussie victory
Will seem a little empty,
Now there’s nothing we can do
To make the series live again.
A win is still a loss;
You don’t need to use
All those fifty ways.

Maybe it doesn’t matter
If we go and lose five nil.
We’ve already lost what we
aimed to fulfill. We can’t change
Those first three games,
There must be fifty ways
To lose the Ashes

Play the Australians.
Pick Geraint Jones
Ahead of Chris Read.
Don’t prepare for the Gabba,
Ignore Monty Panesar,
Madness at Adelaide,
Led t(w)o the Waca.

Australians need not go much further than this. Winning is joy shared by all, except the loser. Loss is more private, if not personal.

This guide should not be necessary. Not just because England at worst should have drawn Adelaide, but by now England supporters should have grown used to loss and disappointment, not just in tests, but also one day internationals, soccer, rugger (both codes, especially union) athletics (2012 here we come) Wimbledon and lest you’ve forgotten the Empire – which included Australia.

As nations we’re sporting antipodes. England loses far more than we win, while Australia wins far more than they lose. Likewise expectations. England build expectations upon hopes upon dreams. Australians do their best.

So, how as an England supporter do you cope with loss and failure? Here I speak with some acumen and expertise. Not just as an England supporter, I’m a third generation Coventry City fan. Here are several methods, tried and tested, together with a context-based star rating.

The Grieving Process

This is the classical method of coming to terms to coming to terms. Shock, Disbelief, Anger, Guilt, Remorse, Sadness before moving onto the next Ashes Series. Hard work, soul searching, but may lead to personal growth, which in this context is wholly irrelevant <span style=”color:#cc0000;”><strong>*** </strong>

Alternate Realities

You need a smattering of relativity physics for this to work. There is an alternate world in the universe where Vaughan comes back with a fully fit team from Australia having retained the Ashes. A variation is Lady Luck – if only Giles had caught Ponting, Strauss not given out lb, Captain Cook not discovered Australia… Neither luck nor alternate realities hold much water in face of a three nil drubbing.

DIY

Especially after the batting in the second innings at Adelaide, you start to think you could do at least as well as the players you support, especially if you’ve travelled round the world to do it. However <em>’My dead grandmother could play that Shane Warne with a stick of celery blindfold with both hands tied behind her back’ doesn’t quite have that ring of truth about it.

Always Look On The Bright Side of Life

This is the Barmy Army Weltanschlung. For it to have any chance of working it requires copious consumption of alcohol. Indeed for the Barmy Army, win, draw or lose requires copious alcoholic consumption. Provides instant and oblivious if temporary relief. The morning after may well bring back the full horror of the situation.

Temporary Transference of Cultural Identity

Desperate situations require desperate measures. You can deny you were ever interested in cricket, or supported England. You’ll need a alternate pursuit and/or nationality. For example, tiddlewinks or my favourite, as someone with half-Russian blood, becoming a member of the MCC – Moscow Cricket Club. Be prepared for the guilt and loneliness of isolation, not to mention knowing when to time your return.

Historiography

Perhaps the most effective means of combating cricketing failure – the study of the past. It’s a short but easy step to travel from the 2005 Ashes Victory to memories of Gatting, Botham, Brealey, Hutton and before you know it, you’ll find yourself saying ‘That Hammond’s some player’ or  ‘Should we play Ames or Duckworth?’ It doesn’t matter because cricket supporters will respect your knowledge and learning, even possibly forgiving the odd lapse of memory when it comes to buying your round.

Interestingly, the world of literature doesn’t possess this depth and gravitas. Bonjour Trieste was written in the 1950s by Francoise Sagan as the sad end to the gay (both senses of the word) riviera life of the epoch and her own. Trieste, that Adriatic resort which can’t decide if it’s Italian or Slavonic. Today Sagan’s excellent novel is out of print and forgotten. Not so great cricketers of class and the past.

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. As Trundler Selvey says in The Grauniad. “It isn’t over till the Fat Boy spins.”

Freddie hooks Lee over Hussey for six to raise the fifty partnership. KP has scored nine of them. Kerry O’Keefe burbles on about Perth’s beautiful sunsets over the Indian Ocean. Sod that. Time to retune to Aggers. Drinks without a wicket loss

Sharp piece of work by Hussey at short-leg nearly runs out Pietersen. The third umpire takes the time I need to write half-a-dozen paras to come to a decision. Pure theatre. The agony is agony, not least for Pietersen; what will be the verdict, are you ready, stare at the replay screen with all the spectators, umpires, players, Pietersen and Hussey.

Warne contines to yell, query and plead for everything. When and if he retires, a career as a barrister for the defence should appeal to the Clarence Darrow of the crease. The umpire is unmoved. Like the Little Britain “Computer says no.” “Rudi Koertzen says no.”

Two balls later Selvey’s Fat Boy does Freddy with a drifting slider, cleaned bowled 51. The candle’s half-guttering glow dims more weakly. Enter keeper Jones on a pair. Run-out à la Hussey by Ponting for, that’s right, a pair. Warnie thinks it’s another lbw notch to his seven hundred target; he needs another two, otherwise Melbourne and home territory of the MCG. Geraint Jones’s slight figure returns to the pavilion still smaller, virtually no wax left in the candle’s tank as English fortunes contine to wane.

It’s Parfitt time. Back in the sixties when I learned to play, watch and listen to cricket, I remember England in a hopeless jam and thinking ‘Never mind, Parfitt’s in at number seven.” About the same time as Parfitt was out for crumbs, I realised my brain had gone throuigh exactly the same thought processes with Parfitt in the Test before. All due respect to the Middlesex left-handed batting all-rounder, there is no cure. To misquote Robert Palmer ‘You might as well face it, you’re addicted to loss.’

Sajid Mahmood’s worth a few, I reckon, like Parfitt, could get through to tea. Lbw for four to a Stuart Clark yorker you could see swing in but were as near powerless as Mahmood to stop its inevitable progress. 8 for 345, score written the Australian way because this is Australia Day.

Warne’s first ball to Harmison thuds the pad. Yell, query, plead. Rudi Koertzen says yes.

Enter The Monty. Mobile throbs in my shorts pocket. Channel Four Radio.

‘How’s it going?’
‘Not too bad. Monty’s in. If he can shield the strike from Pietersen we should be alright.’

We agree to do an interview some time after lunch. Won’t be more than half-an-hour I tell them.

Ever the optimist. It’s done with two balls after lunch. Monty cleaned bowled Warne, 699 test wickets since debut. The crowd go bonkers.

YAHOO, says the replay screen AUSTRALIA WIN BACK THE ASHES.

One of their players shouts into the microphone ‘You bloody beauty.’

Doesn’t matter that Yahoos in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels were ‘vile and savage creatures, filthy and with unpleasant habits, resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of Lemuel Gulliver’ (Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_(literature) The Aussies have won back the Ashes

- As they’d delight telling the Dean of Dublin in no uncertain terms. I can’t quite share their enthusiasm and joy, never mind the ear-to-ear grins, but do appreciate their jubilation. A dad with his two boys in the row ahead will be able to talk long into their futures about the Monday before Christmas when they watched Australia regain the Ashes. I’m reminded of the time when Coventry won the FA Cup in 1987. I turned to my eldest brother Daniel, both of us close to tears in our eyes to match our ear-to-ear grins. ‘Nothing else to live for,’ he said.

What of the English fans? The Barmy Army, and the millions listening or watching at about four in the morning, cold, bleak, damp, miserable, needing about four layers just to get out of bed? Hard to say. A numbness. Acceptance of inevitability. The loss of all hope, as well as the Ashes. The Barmy Army stay mass-ranked, singing their best in the face of cataclysmic disaster. If the pubs run out of beer it’ll be a tragedy.

On the way home there is one of those strange moments that come to pass in unfamiliar lands. In the park west of the Waca is a model of the ground, flower-beds, petunias in the main, as the stands, players awning-pegs painted white and the six floodlight towers adaptation of plastic rakes, each ‘Made in Australia.’ I can just hear the Barmy Army, the last to leave, chant Engerland, Engerland, Engerland.

The English players must now feel about as small as the models in the park. I take the Channel Four call, and as we talk the park staff come and remove all the players and floodlights to leave nothing but a bare stage.

Shakespeare had it about right.

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Ode To Contest – Third Test, Perth, England lose, and lose hold of the Ashes

Behind the bowler’s arm, scoreboard obscured,
Cloudy day, rain forecast but unlikely,
England’s prayers rest with God Almighty.
Two tall hopes nearly out before they’ve scored,
Fred survives, a tide of drives floods the boards,
Stupendous risk for six hooked off Brett Lee,
None down at drinks, game on, yet unlikely.
Braced danger-laced half-centuries yield applause
That courts the final strike. Five quick blows
Ends it all. All Australia rejoices;
Reclaims their men who reclaimed the Ashes
Against time and England’s proudest voices
Stilled. Half by half by half each candle’s ghost
Bleakens the dark hearth burnt out by your host.

Best hope is the poms to bowl like drains and bat like kings, relying on Ponting’s Declaration Manifest to eke out a draw.

Will England’s innings be a right royal procession?

With my lunch I take a copy of Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishman to amuse myself as ‘Lost Hopes and Freddie’s Men Get Out In The Aussie Sun’, under the West Australian skies and Baggy Green cosh.

If the heat and cricket is too much for embattled pom supporters, they could stay in their hotel rooms to watch India vs South Africa or Sri Lanka vs New Zealand, not to mention Pakistan vs West Indies one-dayers. Their task is enormous but nothing is impossible. Earlier this year Australia posted a One Day International world record 434 off fifty overs. South Africa were cooked until their opener Hershelle Gibbs said in the dressing room ‘You know, I think they’re about a dozen runs short.’ They won by one wicket and ball to spare. England need some Hershelle.

Back to reality, nipping ourside the hotel at eight am yesterday I caught (both hands) some blues guitar from the bar. ‘Bit early for B B King,’ I said to the barman. ‘Probably,’ he replied.

Is it a bit too early to write an Ashes Blues? After half-an-hour no wickets down, and with the humour of doomed men, we’re reckoning any rain predicted for tomorrow might just save Australia as we close in on the run chase. I like blues, especially the lyrics, which are honest, heart-felt and straightforward. More contemporary poetry and poets should acknowledge and respect these qualities. As I said when the theme of National Poetry Day was song, can anyone come up with a better line of 20th century verse than John Lee Hooker’s ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.’ e-mail me info@lit-net.org if you can.

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom sums up Gilchrist’s hundred yesterday. It won’t be such a performance today. I once wrote a spoof blues which began

‘I don’t need no divorce lawyer to tell me my woman’s gone.’

The English Ashes Hopes Blues

We don’t need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell us the Ashes are gone.
We travelled here with the urn inside our hearts,
At Brisbane we didn’t get off to the best of starts,
On the final day the promised rain just didn’t come,
we don’t need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell us the Ashes are gone.

Won the toss on a dead flat pitch at Adelaide,
Never mind dropped catches and poor selections
However well Paul Collingwood played
The rest of them threw it away in the second knock,
we don’t need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell us the Ashes are gone.

Lost the toss at Perth but bowled them out for 244
Then our turn to bat and we didn’t match their score
Second innings Hussey, Clarke and Gilchrist all got tons
Now to save the Ashes we need to hit 560 runs,
we don’t need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell us the Ashes are gone.

Ian Bell at least is showing some fight. Warne’s first over sees a four over the top, bamboozled by a fizzing leggie, then down the wicket for a six. Which takes the target to less than five hundred and lunchtime comes with no further wickets down. Saint Herschelle, saviour of lost causes, must be looking kindly upon us.

The great escape continues after lunch. Even England’s bogey 111 is circumnavigated by Bell’s slightly dodgy loft of McGrath over mid-off. Denis Compton was once asked on tv why 111 was called Nelson. ‘Simple really. One eye, one arm, and – ‘ ‘Shut up, Dennis.’

Bell and Cook bat superbly, which starts to get under even some Aussies thick skins. At first all is quiet, and the Waca feels like a very hot weekend at Scarborough or Cheltenham Festivals. Then Warne starts to give the umpires his famed ‘How can that not be out?’ stare and verbal, which the Barmy Army enforce with richly ironic ‘Oooooo!’
This leads to the Aussies clapping in Brett Lee but only for the over before the drinks interval, losing any momentum gained. Timing, chaps.

Two Aussies enfilade Barmy Army flanks waving the Southern Cross. It is suggested a white flag might be more appropriate, which is excellent advice since two Aussie police blokes escort them from the premises via their ear-holes. The bats of Bell and Cook re-establish the English county festival atmosphere. More tea, vicar?

Warne bowls a full toss which Bell smacks straight down Langer’s throat for 87. 170 for 2. Keep dreaming.

After tea the diligent and worthy Stuart Clark has Collingwood caught at the wicket driving. 185 for 3. Stuart Clark has been the Australian’s Matthew Hoggard. Not super quick but very accurate, and aways doing something with the ball. A big difference between the teams. Of England pace-bowlers only Hoggard has consistently been sufficiently precise to keep the batsmen under pressure. (If anything it was the reverse last summer in England, and those cynics in the know might want to note the then England bowling coach Troy Cooley now being the Australian’s – not poached but because the ECB couldn’t agree a contract in time.)This is why the pitch seems so much easier when Australia are at the crease. It’s really noticable at the Waca where the pitch has some pace and bounce, which is good for accurate bowlers and stroke-playing batsmen. I like it. A combination of the Waca strip and Adelaide ground is my idea of cricketing heaven.

Only 370 to win; Kevin Pietersen your adopted country needs you. Three near-run outs ensue. The Green Baggies make it hard for Alistair Cook to reach his hundred, but the twenty-one year old gets there in the end. I like Cook. He plays correctly (you can see Graham Gooch has coached him) particularly how his elbow is always over the ball…

Essex Coastline

Harwich, Frinton, Clacton,
Brightlingsea, West Mersea,
Maldon, Burnham, Southend.
From the scapula of the Stour
to the humerous of the Naze
and the Thames phalanges

Alistair Cook
gets all Essex over the ball;
its coast the shape of his elbow.

His birthday is Christmas Day and is the first Englishman to score four hundreds before he’s twenty-two. The best present he could give himself is a live Ashes Series going into Melbourne.

Looks difficult. Caught behind off McGrath for 116. 261 for 4, three hundred still to get.

The floodlights come on, but the lights in England are fading fast in the cloudy grey of the skies. Nightwatchman Matthew Hoggard walks out and back in again, clean-bowled two balls later. Flintoff enters like a champion to be beaten all ends up for his first two balls, which McGrath sends down with micrometer precision into the corridor of uncertainty. Now the Aussie crowd is making all the noise. Pietersen and Flintoff both need big hundreds tomorrow to silence them. At least you feel they’ll try.

Back at the hotel and Saint Herschelle bags a pair against the Indians. Storms are forecast in the next twentyfour hours. It hasn’t rained yet.

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 writing the poetry. I’m not a natural Barmy Army-ite, probably don’t drink enough and too much of a loner to need or want the company of other good sorts. Which they are. The banter between them and the Aussie Fanatics is good and good humoured. Everyone likes them, and the killjoys at Cricket Australia who banned Billy The Trumpet for the first two tests, never took this into account. In 1770 No Worries, the equivant of Sellar and Yeatman’s 1066 and All That, starting with Captain Cook’s landing, the Barmy Army would go down as a good thing.

Most right-thinking people would object to the ‘Show your tits for the lads’ chant – would they oblige if the Ladies Pavilion responded to see what Willy Wavers and His Pals have got to sing about? Well, yes, they probably would. But they aren’t racist, xenophoebic or too unkind. If you believe in mission statements, especially ungramatical, they more than fulfill theirs. ‘We’re the loyalest cricket supporters the world has ever had.’

162-2 Monty enters the attack. Perhaps the last throw of the Ashes dice.

Today is blistering. Even the metal case of my personal organiser/pocket lap-top is nearly too hot to touch. One thing the Waca does do well is provide free sun-crème, except they’ve run out by 12.30. We’ll see if they have some by lunchtime. Jonathan Agnew in the commentary box yesterday (how do you think I appear so expert on the game?) was saying how well we were doing without any shade from a superhot sun. Not half as bad as six layers of thermos-flasks freezing your nuts off watching super-soppers soak up the day before play is officially abandoned half an hour before the official close.

Why start at 11.30, already close to the hottest part of the day? Seems most unfair on players, spectators and support staff alike. You know why? Money. In particular tv rights, which in cricket world wide went for 3.2 billion the other day – pounds, dollars Oz or US doesn’t really matter unless you’re counting. Every spectator without shade at the Waca is paying to suffer, just because Fox and Channel Nine can contest peaktime viewing. That’s why the start time was put back an hour. Sports supporters are victims, which is partly why they drink so much. Even the Gatorade drinks cart is wilting in the heat. Cricket Australia, you wouldn’t treat your dog like this, and if you did the RSPCA and its Australian equivalent would take you to court quicker than a slap of sun crème. Talking of which, let’s see if the ground authorities have found some more…

…. Yep, and the players take an additional attritional drinks break because it’s so hot. What was it that Noel Coward said? Mad Dogs And Englishmen Go Out in The Midday Sun. You won’t believe this, it’s almost as hot as Old Trafford.

Old Trafford Triptych 2nd Day 2nd Test England vs Pakistan 2006

Outlook

the opening of umbrellas
is a more accustomed barometer
at Old Trafford

legends state a glimse of the Peak District
means it’s about to pour
and if you can’t catch its haunches
it already is

sooner or later
it’s bound to happen
the number of umbrellas
instructs umpires
to stop play

today is different
beneath the scoreboard
papers and scorecards flicker and flick
fans for fans to fan themselves
against a hard hot sun
to sisyphus unsusurated air
towards a mirage of cool

viewed across the ground
a beast – farmyard, iguana
legendary minotaur flicks fur hair scales
along prone desperate flanks
to beat sense into senseless
unbeatable heat – flick flick flick

it stops
a shot for four
a wicket’s fall

in the stillness before
the betwitchéd beast suffers
unpenumbrated penance once more
is a certainty more permanent
than glacial rain, snow and ice
which shapes a distant peak district
under the same hard-nosed sun

the world watches cricket

England were hotter too then; a three day victory over Pakistan. Back in the here and now, the sinister twins (Hadyn and Hussey, both lefties) hit the two ton mark, each run a nail in England’s Ashes coffin. Just going to tune into the radio and check Aggers hasn’t melted. Poor fish.

Collingwood snaffles Hayden at slip for 92 off Panesar. 206 for 3. English hope, though faint, still springs re-eternal, though not as springy as Monty’s coltish pitch-length prance of celebration. Maybe this leads to Flintoff and Harmison swopping size 13s. Man-thing, what the best of mates do.

Panesar is the real deal. He gives Clarke, a destroyer of Indian spinners a pace-bowler’s going over each side of lunch.

Jones misjudges a skier from Hussey. Three o’clock, or six in the morning back in Blighty, Hussey and Clarke take Australia into a three hundred lead. Progress is remorseless. Hussey gets his maiden Ashes century

Mr Cricket’s Hundred

It must feel good
To become a statistic you devour
A first Ashes hundred on your home ground
the perfect rubic
It can’t get any better
but you’ll try all the same.

To be ct Jones, b Panesar 103.

The Monty strikes again, Symonds ct Collingwood for two. 365 for 5 Kevin Pietersen appears in front of us at long leg, a sun-cremed white wraith, pantomime ghost of England’s cricketing hopes from Dicken’s Christmas Carol. KP signs a few autographs and someone comes down to the picket to try and engage the wraith in conversation. Something about busting noses, who knows, but the bloke goes away saying ‘He lost me me job, but a good mate.’ Karl Marx was dead right about cult of personality. Why are people so desperate to touch fame?

Michael Clarke kisses the gold of the baggy green helmet upon reaching his century. Achievement and honour embrace.

As so often happens on a Test Match Saturday afternoon, events on and off the pitch diverge. Australia bat England into the dust. Gilchrist fast-forwards to a five hundred lead, with three massive sixes from a Panesar over. The Barmy Army chant as they never have done before all through the drinks interval. The band played on as The Titanic went down.

A mad six-hitting sea-monster Adam Gilchrist overturns lifeboats with the second fastest test century ever. (The first? Viv Richards, also on his home ground, Antigua, and against England.) He makes other mighty smiters, Flintoff and Pietersen, seem Lilliputian by comparison. Fantastic to watch, not too much fun to play against.

Adam Gilchrist
has often played and missed.
It’s when he connects
that the bowler regrets

ever bowling
into the hurdy-gurdy
whirligig six-hitting
machine.

Something of a surprise Ponting declares setting England 557 to win or bat two and bit days to draw. We did it in the first innings at Adelaide. That’s all Freddy needs to say in the dressing room.

Captain’s Dilemma

I need to bat well
bowl well, field well,
take all my catches,
help choose the team,
set fields, raise morale
when we’re down,
enthuse, cajole, console
and kick arse, royally
whenever necessary
and appropriately.

Ensure I do all I can
to ensure we play as a team
where everyone does the best they can
to win, or at least draw.

Christ, a task of Hercules.
What on earth have I let myself in for?
Must be a mug’s game.

Strauss lbw padding up to Lee second ball; according to the radio going over the top. Supporters around me say I should point out that not one Aussie was given out lbw.

Walking home the Barmy Army have a new chant to the tune of Blue Moon.

‘Two days, we’re going to bat for two days.’

Simple really.

It must be weird for the rest of Australia too – not that they aren’t indulgers. For those on Eastern Standard Time, over half the population, play at the Waca starts at 1.30, or just after lunch, and finishes about nine, barbie embers cooling in the darkness.

There is a sense, probably greater than Brisbane, that Perth moves to a different time to the rest of Australia. It seems around ten years behind, maybe more, maybe less, and far less chic and far more bloke orientated. The Hip Guide To Perth from Tourism Western Australia seems to date from the last century, while the tv in my hotel room is proud to have four adult movie channels. I knew I should have packed flares.

‘Come on, Coventry!’ as a friendly greeting to Burnley compatriots in the row ahead. Colin from Essex asks my lunchtime prediction. ‘113 for 4′ before patriotism gets the better of me, ‘113 for 3′

It’s hard work. Collingwood out slashing, then Strauss to an iffy caught behind, to add to a dodgy one in Adelaide.

Those That Go Against You

In the cool shadowed privacy
of the dressing room sanctuary,
bats are hurled, windows smashed
with more force, anger and intent
than any maximum smite from the middle.

It never hit the bat.
Clearly missing the stumps.
The umpire’s finger,
not the acumen of the bowler,
sends you on your way.

Rage and fear routs the calm certainty
behind all due care and attention
in adjudication summoning
benefit of the doubt
not to give you out.

The quiet ones always seem to receive
the rough edge of the rub of the green.

Pietersen fairly comfortably, and Flintoff rather dangerously outside off-stump, get past the dandelion and burdock drinks cart and the Baggy Green verbals

Silence in Court

Australian fielders ceaselessly chatter between balls.

‘Will do, Ricky.’ ‘Test match cricket.’
‘On the money, Warnie.’ ‘Easy, Pigeon.’

It’s their way. Habitual as cockatoos
or car horns in the Eernal City,
as much to divert foreigners
as egg patriotism on.

The driving gavel of Pietersen
sends leather to the benches
and silence in court.

The Australians are livier in the field, feeding off the energy of the braided one.

Circus Tricks

A mid-off in the middle of the pool,
he waits for batters to toss a fish:
the lunge, leap, rush and scurry,
somersault, dive, fall, roll and parry,
comes up ball and applause in hand.

Only batters wonder
if they’ll run out of fish
especially if Symonds,
The Performing Seal,
takes a catch

113 for 3 my lunchtime prediction not too far out, before Freddie on borrowed time edges their performing seal and fifth bowler Symonds to slip, and this time Warne doesn’t drop it. 107-5

Jones drives, ct Langer b Symonds 0. 114 for 6.

My Wolves supporter next to me has a spread bet that Pietersen will get more than 350 for the series. ‘He better do it now.’ Last night interviewed by Rod Quinn, we agree the team whose batsman gets a century should win.119 for 6, Lee’s last over, it’ll be good just to get to lunchtime.

After lunch Mahmood slashes unnecessarily but Hoggard gives good support to the Kevin Pietersen show.

The Art of Batsmanship by Matthew Hoggard OBE

1. Play Straight
2. No fancy stuff
3. Hold the stroke
4. Especially if you miss
5. Don’t forget to tell ’em
Sod off

Enter Warne, curiously held back, who does Hoggie with a leggie that bounces. 155 – 8. Pietersen goes for it, Warne into the stands, holes out to Symonds for 70. 175-9. Didn’t quite make the Wolves’ fan bet.

The Monty is at the crease. Together with Stevo Harmison, the last wicket puts on forty, with all the fun of the fair of dropped catches, swirling but safe skiers and outrageous play and misses. More to the point the last four wickets raise 101 runs, which again demonstrates the churlishness of inappropriate shot selection by members of the selection committee, Messrs Flintoff and Jones.

One thing for sure, unlike Adelaide this game doesn’t have draw etched all over it, and it ain’t going to last five days unless both teams bat spectacularly well and bowl just as badly in the second knock.

Australia’s small lead is significant. They’d fancy knocking England over for less than two hundred second dig, and England know it. In turn this means it’ll be a hard game for England to win unless they skittle out the Green Baggies for around 150 or less.

In other words bowl their socks off. We shall see.

No such luck. Hoggard castles Langer through the gate first ball (cricket speak for clean bowled) Much in the same way Langer was bowled by Panesar. He doesn’t get forward far enough.

That’s it. Without too much trouble Hayden and Ponting – who else – complete fifties and at stumps Australia are 119 for 1, 148 ahead. While finishing this the room tv is tuned to India vs South Africa 1st Test. India 72-2, Dravid and Tendulkar conduct a master class how to defend against Pollock et al. The ground in Jo’burg is empty. Today the WACA was packed, and Billy The Trumpet was reduced to playing Carols.

We Two Kings

We two kings from Orient are,
Sajid Mahmood and Panesar.
From Pakistan and India,
Their parents give good cheer

O five for ninetyfour on day one,
You’ve done well, come on my son,
Both Monty and Sajid’ll have to take plenty
Following your cricketing stars

Not even sure Santa can retain the Ashes for England, and I don’t think even my Wolves’ mate would get good odds.

Talking of which, England pick Mahmood and Panesar

22-0 – Billy the trumpeter starts, which at least gets Freddie’s attention at second slip. If we win this game, there’s a ready-made excuse, no, reason, for going two down in the first place – a lack of Billy The Trumpet, who needs to do a Josuah at the Aussie Walls of Jericho.

Trumpet Voluntary – to tune of Land of Hope and Glory

Land of hope and Billy
Trumpets cross Aussie Grounds
Proscribed at Adelaide and Gabba
At Perth we rose to your sound

Maybe it won’t do the trick but the Barmy Army falsetto Aussie singing has everyone in good humour. 27-0.

Every Australian

Every Australian
wants to be Matthew Hayden.
Giant stride forward to meet the ball,
great arc of willow becomes a maul
to drive each pom into the back
of the outback and beyond.
Every Australian
Wants to be Matthew Hayden.

Not to be outdone, Langer hooks Flintoff for four – through midwicket, then a flashing coverdrive – straight over the keeper’s head. 39-0 My start of play lunchtime prediction of 87-3 looks a tad optimistic, at least wickets wise

42-0 Stevo Harmison enters the attack, but at 47 the Great Australian Hayden flashes the great arc once too often and is caught Jones, bowled,that’s right, Hoggard. It might be the last appearance of the Great Australian Hayden, who is an endangered species, but the real contest starts. Ponting The Magnificent.

Exit for 3, the Tasmanian Devil lbw Harmison, to one which could well be going down leg-side, which from a partisan point of view, makes the success taste all the sweeter. Contest now on, Harmison bowling with fire, Flintoff tight, for the first time in the series, the England attack has the Green Baggies on the back foot, literally as well as metaphorically. Runs dry up, Flintoff grasses a hard chance from Langer off Harmison, and enter Monty Panesar with a maiden. The signs are good. John Major won the bag of 3 mobile goodies. Not the John Major, President of Surrey, friend of Edwina (note the Derby connection) and keeper of the Grey Underpants. Or maybe it was the John Major, after all.

Whatever the signs, this is the real England, with fire in their belly. They might have left for the WACA before the Adelaide Test was finished but they’ve certainly arrived here.

Mahmood joins Monty, two kings from Orient are. Langer cleaned bowled Panesar 37, last ball before lunch. 69 for 3. A pearler of a delivery.

The Demon Panesar

You become yourself as you reach the crease
Gently poised paces, all limbs leaned to slight
Opponents’ fraught intent. Deft, accurate,
no whimsical flight; quick arm at its height
injects lethal charm to bewitch them out.
You need show no mercy until they leave.

At drinks I’d just untrousered ten Australian dollars – about threppence in the Queen’s shilling – for a raffle to support Western Australian junior cricket. They might be needed sooner than anticipated….

Clarke and Hussey bat well after lunch, but at the drinks interval Harmison pouches at return catch from Clarke 121 for 4. In the roof terrace of Tracy Island the taches of Lillee and Marsh droop and might just detach themselves from the rest of their puppets’ strings. Enter Symonds a pom turned Oz, who doubtless possesses more hair in one of his braids than Warnie has left naturally in his napper. The braids stop shaking after each of his successive straight sixes land in the crowd, braids vs turban. Hussey has a word between the braided one’s braids shell-like, and the next ball is extravagantly cut into the keeper’s gloves. Symonds ct Jones b Panesar 26. 172 for 5. Gilchrist bat-pads to short-leg for a duck. 172 for 6. I get grief from a Burnley supporter for the inaccuracy of my tea-time prediction of 165 for 6 being a few runs short. Mea culpa, we beat them last Saturday by a dodgy penalty.

214 – 7 Warne out à la Symonds, cutting to Jones. Hussey still there for a well-played fifty, especially his off-driving, a purist’s delight. My 65 for 2 at stumps looks interesting.

Enter the Gatorade drinks cart, and I dream of another antipodean contest….the Gatorade cart and the Tizer truck go head-to-head for the honour of a final against the winner of Extra-fizzy Cream Soda versus Dandelion & Burdock. How we yearn for the olden days of Robinson’s Barley Water and Rose’s Lime Cordial. I should sarsaparilla.

234 – 8 Lee lbw Panesar 10. Monty’s bagged a fivefor.

We Two Kings

We two kings from Orient are,
Sajid Mahmood and Panesar.
From Pakistan and India,
Their parents give good cheer

O five for ninetyfour on day one,
You’ve done well, come on my son,
After Monty, Sajid will take plenty
Following your cricketing stars

244 all out. Harmison cleans up the tail, 4 for 48. Billy’s trumpet has clearly tuned up the Harmoniser with plenty of bounce and lift. Hussey left stranded on 74, a little like Collingwood at Adelaide.

Desert Island

Left, deserted, undefeated
how might you have done more?

Chance your arm, get out sooner
yet not your fault for other’s failures
to heed circumstances as found.

The innings end might seem a rescue
from a desert island you never wanted to leave
but like Robinson Crusoe you too had to go
having grown accustomed to a place and its ways

England start well. Strauss smacks Lee’s first two deliveries for four, just as Radio Derby ring for a live interview in the morning – far too much background noise to proceed. At least my Nokia 1100 didn’t take any wickets.

36 for 1 Cook ct Langer b McGrath 15 The Aussie crowd no longer quite so quiet.

37 for 2 Bell ct Gilchrist b Lee 0. Ten overs to go, eight more runs to save the follow-on, England would buy 65 for 2 at stumps, ending on 51.

Walking home I see a women waiting in a car….

She reads a book in the driver’s seat
Of a bright yellow Ford Falcon XR6

Then realise there are dozens of them, not necessarily reading the same book. There’s a poem in there somewhere, not necessarily in the books they’re reading, but something on the lines of Cricket Widows.

Cherio.