Ashes Poetry

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.

an adaptation of 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) …..

The Man in The Glass

 For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass.
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass

You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum,
And think you’re a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

He’s the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear to the end,
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartache and tears,
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

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

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

 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

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.

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

Before checking the Dressing Stations behind front lines at Headingley, I’d like to say how marvellous it was and is that there is an Ashes Festival in Leeds www.ashesfestivalinleeds.com. I would say that since they asked me to close the official reception this Tuesday, which I did with http://www.ashespoetry.net/2009/08/03/safety-in-numbers/ written the evening before. It seemed to go down pretty well, but I was more impressed by the efforts Yorkshire County Cricket Club had gone to engage with the rest of the city – it reminded me of Cardiff more than Lord’s, an effort to use the cricket to display the city. Design and co-ordination by www.bananakick.com who’ve done a great job. Perhaps more important in the long term is the launch of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, a charity to promote cricket in the community http://www.yorkshireccc.com/community/communityreport/index.html for the benefit of the community as well as cricket. Good on yer.

I’m keen to discover if Sean Ruane will be singing Jerusalem at Headingley. If you’ve read the tweets http://twitter.com/ashespoetry you’ll see I can’t stand it, cod-opera and the murder of William Blake’s vision. I’m pretty certain Sean can’t stand it either, kareoking Pavarotti’s grave five days on the trot, with crap p.a. and acoustics to an audience who couldn’t give a XXXX. It keeps him in drinking tokens, I guess. Jerusalem’s a bit more serious. On Sunday we drove home to leafy Bredon, Worcestershire, past a Co-op which was shut cos it was Sunday. No worries, they’ll be a convenience along the road. We found a Cost-Cutter in the rough end of Stirchley, near a burnt-out car, my daughter was sharp to point out. It was cheap, food not mint-fresh, and Waitrose it wasn’t, more dark satanic mills William Blake was urging to replace in Jersalem. It’s a protest song, from the Songs of Innocence and Experience.

More of this sometime later, but if Sean Ruane is to give it some welly, we think there should also be some Aussie songs too. Their official national anthem ‘Advance Australia Fair’ is about as bad as ours. However my friend Neil Smith, Director of www.tav.au  in Adelaide, who came over just to hear Sean sing, reckons he’s got the answer for a new Australian national anthem. The Vegemite Song:-

We’re happy little Vegemites
As bright as bright can be.
We all enjoy our Vegemite
For breakfast, lunch and tea.
Our Mummies say we’re growing stronger
Every single week
Because we love our Vegemite.
We all adore our Vegemite.
IT PUTS A ROSE IN EVERY CHEEK!

Fairly innocent and above board - what else would you expect from J Walter Thompson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegemite) – until you realise exactly which cheeks of the body each rose is put upon remains unspecified. On those grounds, of insufficient yet too much salaciousness it has to be vetoed for the Western Stand of Headingley, where they’ve already banned Barmy Army’s Billy The Trumpet (but Ashes Poetry can exclusively reveal he’s been retained for the demolition work for the new Jerusalem that will be Headingley given the track-record of his forebear Joshua at Jericho.) We need something to move adults to sing canned brio qua Sean Ruane, even if cans of lager are also banned. Bread of Heaven is an obvious choice, but clearly insufficiently antipodean. What could be more Australian than budgie-smugglers, where my last remaining literary ambition is to see it inside the Oxford English Dictionary ….

Things are tight, but they’ll get tighter,
Grab your chances in each hand.
Hold on fast while urge grows stronger,
Lead us to the promised land.

Budgie-smugglers, budgie-smugglers,
Squeeze me till I’m squeezed no more,
                                      (squeezed no more,)
Squeeze me till I’m squeezed no more. 

However it won’t replace the Green Baggies’ Under The Southern Cross. Will they be singing it at the end of the Headingley Test?

Brian Homer – www.homercreative.com – has devised the Neilometer, which measures an Aussie fan’s disposition during procedings. At Edgbaston the Neilometer swung from smug satisfaction at the end of the first day to stunned disbelief followed by scowlful showers and nervous disposition before resuming a sunny though not quite rosey vegemite glow. A day ahead at Headingley the Neilometer seemed to be wavering around cautiously optimistic, as does John Bull.

One problem in prognosticating is the number of walking wounded…. Flintoff’s knee, KP’s achilles, Swann’s bruised ego, Lee’s rib, Clarke’s stomach, Haddin’s finger… add them all together and you get something that looks like Arnie Schwarzenegger at the tail end of Terminator II with pads, box and helmet. (If this isn’t a clear case of too many games too close together, the BCCI also wanting to avoid WADA doping rules because of too much cricket, not to mention acronyms, is a CIP – case in point.)

England have brought in Trott in case Flintoff is crook. Laurel, my daughter, says this is to give tired headline writers extra punning material, but it could be to restore the number of South Africans in the England team to two. It used to be Yorkshiremen, and before any Aussies get too sniffy, remember Kepler Wessels, who actually played for South Africa after opening for Australia, where he out-lawried pigeon-fancier Bill Lawrie. Incidentally, name the cricketer who was born in one country, played for another, banned by a third for playing in a fourth – Laurel thought that one up for our Edgbaston sports quiz.

What’s interesting were Flintoff’ crook and Haddin’s okay is that the teams may switch in balance. Australia could play Haddin at six and five specialist bowlers, and England Prior at seven with four bowlers. Exactly who is anyone’s guess. I’d go for Haddin at six and add Clark and Lee to drop Siddle – they need to attack and they’re still yet to take twenty wickets. England’s trickier if Flintoff can’t be screwed back together in time. Four bowlers looks light, but Prior at six without Flintoff at seven looks light too. You realise the value of a true all-rounder. If Flintoff’s fit, as Edgbaston. If not, then only Anderson is dead certain of a place in the attack, and Broad if they don’t play six batsmen. In all these circumstances winning the toss may not be as important as bowling under overcast conditions. My prediction? If both sides go for a win it’ll be a draw. If England aim for a draw, they’ll lose. I’ve just tapped the Neilometer, which remains set at quizzical.

The papers are full of it. Shock, horror, people drink at test matches. This is also known as lazy journos not looking for a story. Richard Whitehead ‘The Thunderer’ in The Times is perhaps the worst   http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6736701.ece 
“Those not used to these occasions might think they have slipped into a Hogarth canvas.” My fourteen year old daughter, who was perfectly happy and safe to go to the loo or chips within this Hogarth canvas, employed a highly effective and poetically technical Hogarthian term to summarise ‘The Thunderer’s’  veracity – “Bollocks” (I may have chosen “All piss and wind” but there is a generation gap.)

Of course if you sit behind the bowler’s arm either at the match or in front of your slippers and tele you are a bona-fide member of the Serious Cricket Watchers Assocation (SCWA rules – 1. watch cricket 2. be serious. All transgressions punished by the utmost levity.) As such the booing of Captain Ponting is a mortal sin. Not because it is boorish, nor because it’ll get Punter’s gander up leading to even more runs to the highest test scoring Aussie bat: both are true. No, because you deny yourself appreciating a truly great player, which is why it’s the communal raspberry from the bleachers – Ian Bell dreams of being booed. The SCWA is debating whether to proscribe the merest ripple of the politest applause since it may arouse those members who find themselves dropping off so seriously have they taken to watching the game – one momentary lapse of concentration and you’re gone – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Odd test match, this. Were it not the Australians, nor being one-nil up in the series, nor the memory of 2005, most people would say it was a pretty dull affair, more or less ruined by the weather. Which would be more or less true, certainly from half-an-hour prior tea on the last day, when it was clear Australia didn’t need the rain to save them, and the rest of the cricket was like watching paint dry – inside the tin.

With the MCC World Cricket Committee mooting a Test Match Championship, maybe it’s time to think about not measuring test match durations in days but in overs. In other words, 450 overs must be bowled before the game’s a draw, however many days it takes. It might seem a screwball idea at first but reasons against it aren’t cricketing. Think about it….. 

Working backwards, within the paint tin, Michael Clarke made damned sure Graham Swann got the message loud and clear that his final day dismissal at Lord’s was a fluke, a lucky fluke at that. He kept off-driving the offie for four more or less at will, in preparation for Headingley and the Oval. Why on earth didn’t Strauss stop the flogging earlier? We also learnt Bopara isn’t a test match bowler, and on this evidence his 44 first class victims must still be wondering what they did to get out.

Hussey’s gone a decent way to reinstating himself. He chose the riskier strategy of going for the drive, with plenty of playing and missing. Rightly so. It put very necessary runs on the board, and had he edged it would have flown hard and high. Interesting when he was out two balls before lunch he seemed to pull out of the shot. Watson’s become a decent make-shift opener. Plays straight and gets into line. Overall the Australians saved the game without too much fuss, just as England should have at a belter of a track at Cardiff. Well-played test cricket doesn’t necessarily mean gripping thrills.

Why didn’t England bowl out Australia? Exactly the same at Edgbaston, Vaughan’s last game, against South Africa last year. In India and two tests in the West Indies this winter, not to mention Lord’s when Australia recovered from one-hundred odd for five to over four hundred all out. England don’t seem to have the necessary hardness, gumf, guile, call-it-what-you-will to kill off sides from a winning position in the final innings. Overall England’s attack need helpful conditions to oust the Australian top-order, plus some suicide – the pulls and hooks first innings at Lord’s, or uncertainty how to play swing in the first innings here. Equally Australia don’t seem to have the bowlers for English conditions, Hilfenhaus the exception. However they must be learning, both batsmen and bowlers, whereas there are still question marks dangling against Bopara and Prior at least with the bat, and Broad with the ball. In deed the best English batsman was Flintoff who played a Pietersen innings, 74 from 79 balls, before getting the one unplayable ball from Horitz so far in the series. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. His knee is a desperate worry.

Captain watch. Strauss still remains curious. Why no Anderson from the off on the last day? Ponting seems lonely, not having someone to talk to, leading to micro-management field changes rather than sweeps of strategy. He must be thinking micro-management thoughts all the time, which may explain his lack of runs since Cardiff.

Australia may feel they left Birmingham ahead on points, but the second morning when six wickets fell in double-quick time will haunt.

For me, watching Manou was a joy. Not perfect, but a proper wicket-keeper, not just a bat who happens to keep. Not quite so, Ref Rudi Koertzen. Having written a poem about his 100th test http://www.ashespoetry.net/2009/07/16/koertzen/ detailing the travails of the job, I’m none too critical of him refuting a stone-wall lb against Belly which according to Hawkeye splatted the middle of the middle stump (it may’ve been different were it Punter….) How can anyone tell an umpire’s losing it until he starts to – even himself. You might start singing The Specials’ ‘Message for you, Rudi’ but he’s not nearly as bad as the umpire in Drink Less Miss Less www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbR2HivqRoM starring glamour-puss Jimmy Anderson. My beef was at the end of the fourth day. Play kicked off at lunch and stopped at 7.30 with four overs to go. It should have been three, but Rudi walked so slowly from square leg (maybe that’s why, he’s got them, square legs) that the clock had clunked past the witching hour. In days of yore umpires used to run, or in David Shepherd’s case at England on 111,  hop like an overweight Zebedee, to make sure we got the overs in. It was as bad a piece of delaying play as the batting gloves at Cardiff. Financially Mr Koertzen owes the Edgbaston faithful £20,000 according the calculations made on the back of my £60 ticket (£1 an over, 20,000 crowd = ) Personally the problem with umpires today is that they lack gravitas. Billy Bowden’s crook-fingered sixes are all well and good, but I remember Sid Buller who made Marlon Brando in The Godfather or Apocalypse Now! seem like Mr Bean. You’d never dare question Sid, especially when both of you knew he was wrong. 

Our Freddie, the heart of our eleven
Hallowed be thy knees.
Give us your all from test to test
While inbetween giving them each a rest.
Cortisone injection those Australians
From openers to tail-enders
But do not do yourself a mischief
As you would do unto others.
We forgive you your pedalos
As you would forgive us ours.
At Leeds, lead us not into temptation,
Premature celebration,
Just strive for supreme victory
Not won for three-quarters of a century
At Lord’s, then as at Headingley
For thine is the yorker, the five-for and their bended knee
For ever and ever

Our Urn