npower Ashes Poetry 2009

Hi, just to give you a taste of npower Ashes Poetry 2009.

From Wednesday 8th July I'll be at Cardiff, Lords', Edgbaston, Headingley and Oval to chronicle the series.

About the same as last time, a poem a day, but with a shorter prefacial talk/blog (due to broadcasting constraints with the time-zones working against me while in England instead of Australia)

www.ashespoetry.net should be powered by a http://wordpress.org/ application which will give a much better performance - ease of accessing old scores (if not settling them!) .... newsletter ... starting up this June with Cellophane, the first poem of the series

If you want to know more (a three page digest in Word of the plan ahead,with a bonus poem commissioned by BBC Radio 5Live about Darren Gough on its last page) please come back to me on david@fineandandy.co.uk

Dr Fiffle-Faffle predicts Lord Mandelson will not have taken over Lords' by the end of the series but it could be a damned close-run thing.

Play!

Five-Nil - Brisbane ~ First Test

Courage Of Convictions

Some good, some bad, and some ordinary
people the wrong side of the law to hold
their breath against the creak of deck, rope and
canvas; fixed blank stars slowly alter course
to form a rough southern cross. Realign antipodes

Of lives, destiny and political aspirations.
Now history. Not then. No recompense,
No going back to a dense world of pre-Dickensian
poverty and country-house cricket, a betting game
played for highish stakes fixed by judge and jury
to add to their amusement. A stay of execution
meant no return till the end of each testing sentence

Whose surf, shore and hinterland are unknown,
prime and aboriginal – not the first southern cross,
secret rivers more muddied and altered by distant secrets.
Imprisoned by nothing but the land’s fresh horizons
how could all survive, endure and flourish?

Today twenty-two flannelled fools replay
Australia, set to court failure
on no other grounds.


Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret River, published 2005 about William Thornhill, a convict sent from London to New South Wales less than two hundred years ago.

‘We’re the right side, we’re the right side, we’re the right side over here.
We’re the left side, we’re the left side, we’re the left side over here.
We’re the middle, we’re the middle, we’re the middle over here.
You’re the convicts, You’re the convicts, you’re the convicts over there.’
Barmy Army Chant 2006-7 Ashes Series


Woolloongabba

Woolloongabba they come from far
they come from far to play to play
Woolloongabba Woolloongabba

Waters whirling winds in our hearts
Wind still whirling whirling waters
Whirling fight talk place noisome boys
Warriors outdo warriors outdo out do

place to talk fight die share and drown
warrior-boy lacerated placentas
of fight-talk-hope in whirling waters
Woolloongabba Woolloongabba


According to Cricket Australia’s official guide to the Ashes Series, The Gabba, venue of the First Test at Brisbane, derives its name from Woolloongabba, which may mean “whirling waters” or “fight talk place” in the Aboriginal language of Woolloongabba


The Blacksmith and The Dancer
End of Day One Australia 346 for 3 A Flintoff 2 for 42 R T Ponting 137no

Down they come, twenty-four hammering blows
Run up against the anvil, crease to crease;
England’s finest, leader of tall strong men
Pounds a flat pitch to make something from nothing.

Thor’s great maul hurls down from the north
Red-hot ingots which bounce and spit
Off the anvil to thud pain and fury
Even into the cuffed gloves of his keeper
Three pitches distant from the beginning.

Those in the middle dodge hurtling force,
The smell of singed leather beneath noses
Sears their minds long after danger passes
Till an opener edges heat and is gone.

The dancer comes. Small, slick-quick tip-toe feet
A ballet pump or conductor’s baton
In his hands against Thor’s redoubled thunder
Strong enough to break his own braw bones
In full pursuit of forging victories.

The dancer banishes other tradesmen.
No interest but the blacksmith’s anvil,
Each hammerblow a pirouette, paso
Doble, cock a snook at the once red-hot ingot

Dulled with dancer’s taps as worn floors
For clubbing once clubbing has been done.
Sore feet and hours from Hobart unto Accrington,
The dancer and the blacksmith each know the score;
One or the other of them must be broken.
.
The dancer needs the smith to play
As the smith the dancer’s touch
To end the dancer’s say.


Glen’s Song
Day Three England 157 all out GD McGrath 6-50

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every small mistake, every risk you take
I’ll be watching you

Every single run
Every sledge when you turn
Every game we play, every ball you stay
I’ll be watching you

Oh, can’t you see
You belong to me?
How my hard heart aches
With every play and miss
Every waft you make
Every edge it takes
Every smile you fake, every aim I take
You’ll be watching me

Since you can’t play you’re lost without a trace
I yell alright, appeal straight in your face
You look askance, but your life you can’t replace
It feels so cold, walking back to your disgrace
Keep on trying, bunny, to touch my accuracy.

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every small mistake, every risk you take
I’ll be watching you

With apologies to The Police ‘Every Breath You Take’


The Lap Of The Gods

Andy’s on the blower to his missus in Jakarta
To accelerate the thunder due tomorrow afternoon.
She knows a rain doctor who dries out golf courses
To pilot this bad weather which can’t come too soon.

The Barmy Army take the Gabba with gamps and umbrellas
To make the most of Ricky Ponting batting way past his bedtime.
Queensland and England desperately need precipitation,
State and nation wager all on the imminent arrival of their Cloud Nine.

Of course it doesn’t come on schedule, ignoring devout Christian prayer.
Level Four drought measures squeeze the last drops of moisture from the bone-dry air.
“Conserve natural resources, drink tinnies to piss on those dirty washed-out poms”
Won’t help out-of-town dried-up apple farmers avec ces pommes sans terre.

Maybe a scientific warning of incipient global warming
Could turn Brisbane’s Gabba into a tidal lagoon.
Climatic chronology and geomorphology
Might well lead to underwater cricket all too soon.

Tomorrow it’s onto Adelaide, Mighty Mighty England already one down.
Drought restrictions still enforced; one side or the other about to drown.


England 2nd innings 293-5 overnight, still over 300 runs behind.
“Only rain can save Australia now” Barmy Army chant
“All Sunday they prayed in churches in Queensland for rain” ABC producer

Five-Nil - Adelaide ~ 2nd Test

The Adelaide Oval - 1st December 2006 – end of play England 1st innings 266/3

If you've not seen it for yourself
think Worcester New Road, the view
across the River Severn, Torrens,
sun catching the water in its safe
hands, cathedral behind, an inspiring
article of sporting faith,
then add some. Disneyland
which folk round here rate England's chances
between slim and Buckley's

We shall see, shan't we?


Paul Collingwood
98 not out overnight Adelaide, Second Test Day One.
ct Gilchrist b Clark 206

I shan't get out to this man,
It's not just I'm English and he's Australian,
I shan't get out to this man.
It's not just he's done me too often before,
(last match a century in reach, just needing a four)
It's hard enough to hit the ball, never mind score,
I shan't get out to this man.
Earplug his incessant chatter,
concentrate on being a batter.
But don't get too clever, over after over
I shan't get out to this man.

Even if I reach fifty or more,
will I ever feel secure?
Australia's most venomous creature
spits and coils with every ball,
I shan't get out to this man.
Bones soak under a long hot shower,
having defended hour after hour.
The splash of water reechoes the mantra,
I shan't get out to this man.


Catches Win Matches
Adelaide Day Three – end of play England 551-6 dec Australia 312-5

I swear I saw it come straight off the bat
A small red dot growing to fill the sky
and ready myself to hold its descent,
feet well apart, steady, hand-eye practiced
co-ordination triggered to make the catch.
Arms above my head, a high-board
diver sure to end the ball's spin, tuck
and revolutions with a perfect re-entry
to soft sweatless cushioned pail-like palms. Welcome
a mob of celebration. Mates stare. I dropped it.
I don't see how. A safe pair of hands,
maybe I lost it coming out of the stands,
the red and white flags of Saint George
a dragon of distraction that swallowed
opportunity in a fiery display of Engerland.

Ponting’s hook was dropped at the boundary when he was his own age, early thirties.
He completed a big century. That miss probably lost England any chance of winning.


Hoggard
Adelaide Day Four – end of play England 551-6 dec Australia 513 England 59-1

At times it must be like climbing onto the moors,
dog tugging the lead when mists and rain slip paws.
Hard to see, know where you are,
stumbling into rocks, bogs, uncertain of paths
that could lead to nowhere or circles,
worried you'll be out here beyond nightfall.
Whatever you do the elements take their toll,
sap the spirit till it seems easier to give up;
the familiar world twists cruelly strange.
You climb each hill, break its back before
it breaks yours, seven times
for one hundred and nine long runs, dogged
against these hounds you never let off the leash

Matthew Hoggard, a qualified vet, loves to take his collie onto the Yorkshire moors.


The Sick Team

Adelaide Day Five – Australia won by six wickets

Red Rose, thou are sick!
The Indivisible Warne
That beats you in flight
When you bat without gorm

Has spun out thy draw
Of English joy;
the Green Baggies’ will
Does thy life destroy

With apologies to William Blake The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick!
The Invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of Crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Blake also wrote, of course, Jerusalem.


The English Disease

Like syphilitic medieval kings, England
suddenly went mad. No apparent cause,
no seeming attempt to stem noble pause
in bedlam's frenzy to lose without stand.
Fumbling wickets tumbled from their own hand,
Misery’s drubbing unconceived before
they gouged their own wounds to bone. Running sores
of needless cuts, hooks, pulls and slashes banned
by dressing room: empty-headed retarded
births within teeming middle of crisis
induced by syphilis's half-brother, hubris.
The day’s sure draw before all this started:
licentious defeats grow infectious,
chaste play's honour fouled by these haughty lechers.

Initiated by Greg Baum’s remark on venereal disease and England batsmen the following day in The Sydney Morning Herald


Return To Understand
The Adelaide Oval Wednesday 7th December 2007 – the Day After

return to understand
go back to the emptiness of defeat
you might learn something

seats tipped-up, crowd roar gone
a cockatoo, songbirds call above
drumble of traffic, clang of scaffolders
dismantling temporary stands
you demolished with your batting

A smear of dried ice-cream
stench of spilled beer around the bars
a nasal trail into the arena
its wicket perfect as it always has been

Why have I taken you here?
No flags of Saint George. No
Wigan, Norwich, Cheltenham
and Towcester turned to crumbs
under the Australian sun.
No sign of ourselves.

The scoreboard retells the story
168 for 4, a six wicket victory
they won't take down for a while

Taste the simplicity of defeat
ing yourself. Swallow its emptiness.
Stay till you understand
how never to fail yourselves again.


Day of The Dead

on the occasion of the 8th Baggy Green Dinner, Saturday 2nd December, 2006 Adelaide and in commemoration of the Fourth Test 1929

Seven days hard yakka, they rise from the Ashes,
individual heroes all in teams to test their
undivided mettle. Close finish at the close,
seven days hard yakka, still they rise for the occasion.

We worship the memory, the more their breaths are done
short or long in the field, Jackson to Bradman,
White to Hammond, all eleven of each side
split by a dozen runs after seven days hard yakka

in a field near a river watched by many,
attended by empire from a different era,
depression and bodyline still to come,
Adelaide will always welcome its heroes

whose ghostly sprigs clatter down
and up pavilion steps. Some quick, some slow,
some two at a time, some quiet, near funereal,
a tattoo as sure as any scorecard of exploits

to become players of today. You may say
they do not bear compare with yesteryears’
titans, god-bestowed elegance of performance
to mist over the grind of seven days hard yakka.

Turn for confirmation and you shall hear nothing.
Nothing from them, for other matters call
at the end of their days, boots, pads, bats
sweated armoury, undone yet not yet stowed away,

half-abandoned, stranded in an unwashed canvas
of labour against dressing room tiers
bear witness to these invisible spectres
off to share a few cool ones with posterity they created.


A Statto’s Note From The Fridaliser
“The highlight of England's second innings of 383 was a 262-run partnership for the third wicket between Hammond (177) and Douglas Jardine (98) - on the least controversial of his two tours of Australia.” Cric-info. Hammond’s 177 was the highest score by any English batsman at Adelaide until Collingwood’s 206

Five Nil - Perth ~ Third Test

Perth Players

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.

5 for 94 Australia’s first innings of 244


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 depart
having grown accustomed to a place and its ways.

Mike Hussey 74 no out, top score of 244


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 galahs
or car horns in the Eternal City,
as much to gull foreigners
as egg patriotism on.

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

Kevin Pietersen, 70, top score of 215


The Art of Batsmanship by Matthew Hoggard MBE

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



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,
hauls in a catch


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

Second Innings Hayden hits 92.


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.

Second dig Gillie hits 102 not out, the second fastest test century ever.



Grump, grump, grump I'm Glen McGrath,
Grump, grump, galumph, galgrumpalumph, I'm Glen McGrath,
I'll bend your ear from here to the dressing room
And back again, over after over till you edge or miss
The point of my delivery.



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
stretching across East Anglia.

Essex player Cook scored 116 second time round.



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,
standing as a suspect at the crease
in a line-up of an identity parade.


Umpires’ fingers sawed Andrew Strauss’s legs at least twice during the series.
In other words made a mistake in firing him out. He accepts this without demur.
Methinks he protesteth too little.


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.
What on earth have I let myself in for?

A task that Hercules
would leave for others
more knowing of a hero’s
frailty..


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.



Ode To Contest

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.


Cricket Australia

She reads a book in the driver’s seat
of a bright yellow Ford Falcon XR6.
Another down the road inspects cuticles
in a Pontiac Firebird GTO.
There’s a phillipino ready to go
in a 4x4 Nissan Murrango.
Outside the Waca
you can get high
on the air-conned fumes
of all their nail lacquer.

Flocks of self-preening birds
in their beaus’ muscle cars,
smoothly smoothing feathers
waiting for their sweaty fellas
to come from watching cricket.
- it’s a mate’s thing.

Do they dare mention
what they watched on television?
Adverts for penile dysfunction
to the blokes they promised
to love, honour and obey?

Or better just to ride his mean machine
in hope of greater things to come
from their green and golden cockatoo’s coxcomb?

How dare they ask the question,
however well intentioned,
without ruffling their sweaty fellas’ plumage?

Books in burly hands in the privacy
of their partners’ Micras, would these great
Australian men wait quite so patiently
for their girls’ return from the best of five
Ann Summers’ lingerie party?

Five-Nil Poetry - Melbourne ~ 4th Test

The G, The MCG aka Melbourne Cricket Ground

No village green or country paddock,
the mower misses the long grass wrapped
around the roller and peeling sight screens
pushed over for winter, benches tipped up,
in brass-plated memory of Roger or Ethel
who spent many a long afternoon
eskie or thermos to hand and oblivion
their world conversed by, yet reflected in the blank
replay lcd switched off from instant history
far above the swaying tree line
in Section Gods of this immense roman gladiatorial
arena past and future argue the toss with Janus
who should put thumbs up or down. At the heart of it all
lies an empty field; meadow hay scythed, grass grazed out.
Twenty-two yards, wicket to wicket,
tenth of a furlong, a chain
to tie bat to ball, a landscape
of former empire, medieval origins,
acres ploughed through the mind,
one hundred and five thousand assemble
here to worship.



Warne, Shane Keith
born 13 September 1969 test match debut January 1992
Upon passing his seventh hundred test match wicket
(To the jig, The Sailor’s Hornpipe)

Warnie’s balls turn square, KP hit ’em in the air.
A six or out, there is no doubt.
You get a funny feeling one side’ll be reeling
Ev’ry time Warnie’s balls turn square.

A leggie of Clarrie Grimmett’s accuracy (+ some hair)
The wrong ’un, hard to pick, howzat when flummoxed through the air,
The flipper and the toppie, zooter and the slider
Plus the chatter: yells with looks, asides and pleas,
(the only time the bloke’s down on his knees.)
A Clarence Darrow George Carman at the crease,
No umpire on earth however stoney could say no,
Another baffled if reluctant victim tries to dilly-dally but he has to go.

Next-man-in’s almost out before he’s in.
The legendary magician’s mesmeric legerdemain’s sure to snuff him.
He knows he’ll have to face a flighty camisole tease:
A sinner’s glimpse of fleshy orbed fruit rouged to tantalise
Unveils a hirsute off-the-shoulder Australian hero’s chest
Full of tricks the antipodean baccus of temptation doesn’t divest
Before the silly fool with bat and pads knows he’s transgressed
The blond cherubim’s spinning finger umps him to rest.

Warne, S. K., made his Ashes debut in 1993.
A burgeoning waistline ever since indicates increasingly adequate social activity.
Shoulder strapped, lucky charms, his daughter’s bracelet,
The bald truth’s patently clear, he should really try to face it;
Whatever schemes and dreams of schemes are whirling on within,
The top of his head is not quite what it used to be.
(In fact qua this rhyme, each attempted betting shop remedy to hold back follicular entropy,
His pate, contra fullsome midriffs, pulls or appeals, is ready to turn woefully thin.)
Harum-scarums with mobiles and diuretics,
His simple way with words schtums clever-dick critics,
Through thick and thin he’s always gone back
To his mark: A three-card trick-sy four-step run

That flummoxed Fat Gatt with the ball of last century,
At the lees of his career, the ikon’s tank’s pretty near empty.
Lo, he gambols past Strauss, A. J., namely Seven Hundred
And another One. (Parade-book poms mentioned in dispatches:
A walk-on, walk-off part to line-up in honour of his last five-for.)
Forget the waist and the hair or your age. Heed guru Terry Jenner’s old adage
If you’re good enough, you’re old enough - Let him rip his ripper one last rip:
We’re all sure to miss all its extra extra supradextrous wristily hot-digity extra
mischievous zip.

Admidst chuntering trundling, The Grauniad's Nietzsche-in-Chief
Metaphysical Mighty Mike Selvey sniffs
‘No game’s over till the fat boy spins.’
I’ll buy that, gimme me one more, Skip.
Good on yer, Warnie, hands ready on knees at slip,
Rub haloes with Saint Richie
At the end of any spell in the commentary box above.
May it please Father Time
To both Bless and Love
How your balls turned square!



V- 8 Batting

aussie cars come with muscle for extra hustle
to cover the ground across the states.

hear them burble, roar and hurtle
past bystanders awash with their dust.

in Queensland they understand
these unwritten rules of the road.

big blokes with big strokes
smack the ball and keep the score

accelerating towards a vanishing point
of vanquished oblivion

foot flat out down the wicket
the Hayden-Symonds 279

has all the go you need to show
a howling good motor

the poms innings defeat
looms large in its rear-view mirror.



Capitulation

Ghosts of ghosts of ghosts. The moving hand
Having writ will move on. Each stroke of the pen
Is a mark to be recorded but not taken back.
It is edgier than the blade.

The English batsmen, nothing to lose
Having lost the greatest prize, play at playing.
Their strokes not worthy of themselves
nor their imagination. Out.

Bat under arm, an envelope sealed of a letter
They never wished to write:
An imposition in detention,
It is signed, sealed and delivered.
The long slow empty walk to a lost pavilion.

Ghosts of ghosts of ghosts,
The originals swear under their breaths
To weep real enough tears.



Fifty Ways To Lose The Ashes
(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.

chorus:

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.
Fifty ways to lose the Ashes.

chorus:

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.

Five-Nil Poetry - Sydney ~ 5th Test

Harbour Bridge – 00 00 Monday 1st January 2007

Sydney
a city and land defined by sea, a far greater bridge:
Flinders’ circumnavigation barely left its moorings
from Donnington dominion. Seventy-five years
is nothing more than a life-time bearings.

Over and under, each passage changes yours
a fraction of a second or degrees more abruptly.
Switch clocks to a different time on the far shore;
the click of rail tracks, ferry boards and
circular quay calendar make each journey
a new year for someone far or near;
Greek, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Mediterranean, Slav, Thai
the city a pell-melled canteen of tongues,
not just UK nor colonial Australia,
an anglo-celtic nuptial ring,
a two century skin to countless millennia
of aboriginal lands: hard to come to terms with
what Cook first saw when missing harbour
or original cooks sixty thousand years earlier,
each passage bearing changed their being.

Every one of us history.

Today
after commissioned fireworks and similar paraphernalia
are dustcarted and dumped without the trace of sulphur,
the world becomes again what it was before,
edged on a little further from its origins.
Rail meets gunnel, steel the sea,
Kirribilli, Neutral Bay, Karra Point,
Mosman, Manly, Watson’s,
Pyrmont, Balmain, Parramatta,
all points compass Circular Quay.

Nothing’s left
in the dark seasons’ wind, rain, flood
tides and fogs, steamer horns stygian
clatter trains anchor chains stretch rust
knuckling the bridge under. Till there’s no memory
of loss to see. No arch, no towers, only the initial trade
from rock to rock to haul the heady scent of cargo;
oils, ghosts of spices, wheat, sheep, cattle, carts,
hides and fleeces, unwashed, chaffed, settlers too,
awash within the pattern book of antiquity’s development
the bridge paid its tolls to. Behind these knolls
spectral churches ring in celestial didgeridoo.

From the mist
watch the ferries dance their first footings
to dawn’s indigenous tune.



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.



An Old Scorebox Operator Laments

The game isn’t what it used to be,
nor the creaking knees for climbing creaking stairs
to ring the changes, today they score too damn quickly
for me. Joints need regular lubrication and maintenance,
mine, not just the machinery.

O how I yearn my Slasher MacKay
and Bill Lawry. You could open, pour, lubricate a long cool one
before they dreamt of hitting off the square. Put your feet up.
O my MacKay and my Lawry of not so long ago!
Maybe fifty between lunch and tea, maybe.
Well-oiled by then, time enough
to find the papers, makings,
roll a gasper to inhale each ball
safe in the surety it’d die on my lips

before they turned the old scoreboard over.

Last week they pinned a sign above my head.
‘Living legends don’t smoke’ without mention
to Boof or Warnie - two of the worst.
Gilchrist, Symonds. Hayden and Langer
started it all under the gimlet eye of Waugh.
They score too damn quickly. Rickety
old me ricketing up those rickety stairs,
reels, numbers and boards. And sometimes
I forget to move on the score;
lost, staring at the beauty of it all.



Thnx Justin, Glen and Shane

No tears in their eyes
As they say their goodbyes.

Emotional men. Their passions controlled
Their destinies to excel themselves
For mates and their country.
Weeping publicly is for Oscar ceremonies,
Not the proud bearers of the Baggy Green.

Tears came alright
At times of uncertainty, injury,
Loss of form and controversy.
They wussed from our eyes
Alone, facing torment
To achieve after failure.
Each sob made us stronger,
Bolder, harder, far older
And yet more kind,
Appreciative of hard yakka.

Thank you, Australia

No tear in our eyes
As we say our good byes.



Cartwheels

Dad, spend more time with us.
Pick up from school, act the fool,
be the long one instead of mum
when we don’t do what we should’ve done.

You’ve missed us, we’ve missed you.
Watch us grow up,
achieve the new.

Run, skip and dance
from dreams and memory
to your final match, here.

Born after you first tugged down
the baggie green:
stare beneath its brow
at the games we play on the pitch,
your last catch
our farewell to you.

Shane, Glen, Justin
your turn to watch,
spectate, not make the spectacle.

Our turn to show
what we can do,
a little girl
her blue dress cartwheel

Cartwheel Cartwheel Cartwheel.

Sydney Day Four – Endings

Defeat is all but inevitable. The crushing five-nil loss an ice-berg dwarfing the Titanic.

But Professor Fiffle-Faffle has devised equipment to help England supporters in the one day games for the rest of the tour – The Rose-Tinted Raybans

They turn blue caps into green, and green into blue – and they work for Australians too, as their team of world-beaters disintegrates before their eyes. A prototype has already been tested by the England team manager but alas he remains ever dismal.

The game is quickly over. Third ball Pietersen half-forward hangs his bat out to edge McGrath to Gilchrist. John Arlott once described a beaten batsman as looking like a Henry Moore statue. KP is one of those ghost buccaneers crewing The Black Pearl from Pirates of The Caribbean, all powers drained from body and soul.

England yet to score, Read calls Panesar for a quick single, Monty run out by a foot, failing to ground his bat as Symonds’ throw uproots off-stump.

My ticket states Obstructed Brewongle, which sounds too painful for words, so playing seat-hookey I’m surrounded by blokes in check shirts, the Paddington Chess Club, who don’t play chess. It is a means to secure bookings at pubs and clubs – chess players aren’t reckoned to wreck the joint or welch on bills. I see their point, thinking of the look I received at the desk of the Bowls Club Sydney (an honoured guest at the 23rd dinner of the Sydney Cricket Writers) when asked where I was staying in Sydney. Don’t think the Redfern Ex-Crims Association would find it quite as easy as the PCC to make bookings. Their Chief Oppo, King Louis and their blues singer Delilah sign my hat. I like the Paddington Chess Club, there is something of Guys and Dolls, Damon Runyon, about them. When I get back to Blighty must put them in touch with the Serious Cricket Watchers Society, of which I’m the founder member.

Couple of streaky fours, Read ct Ponting b Lee 4, “That’s how to do it, Justin,” his captain might say “Remember the next time you play.” England +20 for 8

Billy the Trumpet plays ‘Yesterday’

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

Half the problem with English cricket is a belief only in yesterday.

From about that time Billy goes into the Manfred Mann number Pretty Flamingo…

Win Back The Ashes

Back home you’re sure to ask how we lost the Ashes
Were our players not as good?
Didn’t they play as they should?
All quite true, doesn’t say why we lost the Ashes.
Negativity wasn’t right
It let them tonk us out of sight.
It’s a dream all of Australia realised,
We should try it, cos then we wouldn’t be so surprised
At what might come true.

One sweet day we’ll learn how to win back the Ashes
Then Australia will envy us
Instead of saying we’re pretty wuss

Let’s fight back to win the Ashes
Win back the Ashes.

Mahmood lbw McGrath 4. Caught on the crease, not moving forward or back. My elder brother Daniel who nearly exploded yesterday because the English batsmen hadn’t learnt from earlier mistakes is probably seeking succour in eating his teatime sandwich as the end nears. (‘Teatime sandwich?’ Yes, Aussie Bloke, the Fines are incurable optimists, gluttons for punishment as well as nosh) England still + 20 but for 9

Drinks. Crowd Security stop Delilah singing the Chess Club song. As Peter White whose house in Redfern I’m staying in (where the first Prime Minister of Australia grew up, Bowls Club Sydney, please note) said this morning ‘It ends not with a bang but a whimper’ T S Eliot, I say. The Wasteland, we concur, apt for the current state of English cricket, and its writer’s name is an anagram for toilets, which more or less sums up summing up the cricket from an England perspective. I wrote a blues at Perth when the Ashes were finally lost

The English Ashes Hopes Blues

We don't need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell us the Ashes are gone.

The Aussie version would start

The Australian Ashes Blues

You don't need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell you the Ashes are gone,
But winning 5-0 doesn’t smack of triumphalism.
You thought you were pretty good, but were up against the best
Came here underprepared, andwe just did the rest.
You don't need no Aussie Scoreboard to tell you the Ashes are gone.

It’s Australia’s Day now. A few Harmie blows delay the inevitable, Anderson skying McGrath. England all out + 45.

Langer and Hayden come out to knock them off. At first it’s hard yakka. About as hard as the ball Harmison bruises Langer with. Justin must be thinking ‘No more analgesic sprays, ice-packs, and tenderness turning over in bed.’

‘It’s an absolute privilege and honour to wear the baggie green cap one hundred and five times and I’ll really miss it,’ he says at the ceremony afterwards, and his cap is about old and faded as Steve Waugh’s.

When this Ashes Tour is Over (tune of What A Friend We Have In Jesus)

When this Ashes tour is over
No more cricketing for me,
I shall put my commentator’s mike on
To give expert summary on tv.

No more ducking Stevie Harmison,
No more edging Hoggie over the slips,
I shall kiss the gold of my green baggie,
God, I’ll miss this whence it leaves my lips.

(Sung with great feeling and Welsh choralness A modification of the lyrics of When This Lousy War is Over, from “Oh What A Lovely War”; Joan Littlewood, based on the original hymn by Joseph Scriven “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”)

‘It could go into the afternoon,’ I say to the bloke from Perth, who remembers Langer’s father, a good West Australia player too. ‘I hope not,’ he replies.

On cue Hayden on-drives Mahmood for six, and after a consultation with his opening partner to determine who shall have the honour of it, off-drives the winning hit. The crowd go crazy, in the middle they remove helmets and embrace like long-lost brothers after a hard-fought war has ended in victory.

The crowd stay behind to celebrate the 5-0 Strinewash, and the end of three great players’ careers. “Thnx” says the text painted in the turf

Thnx Justin, Glen and Shane

No tears in their eyes
As they say their goodbyes.

Emotional men. Their passions controlled
Their destinies to excel themselves
For mates and their country.
Weeping publicly is for Oscar ceremonies,
Not the proud bearers of the Baggy Green.

Tears came alright
At times of uncertainty, injury,
Loss of form and controversy.
They wussed from our eyes
Alone, facing torment
To achieve after failure.
Each sob made us stronger,
Bolder, harder, far older
And yet more kind,
Appreciative of hard yakka.

Thank you, Australia

No tear in our eyes
As we say our good byes.

Warne and McGrath – I want to write Shane and Glen, but I don’t know them, and more the point, they don’t know me – pose with their kids for the media. You can see that Shane will always be a kid. I think how important the Ashes are to both countries. In establishing Australia as a nation. Her first prime minister, Edmund Barton, brought up his first three children in the house where I typing this. Perhaps in a room which was a nursery. Australia as a state didn’t exist till 1901. Before then it was a set of separate states, and to bring them together was a hard-fought effort, certainly harder than the current series, which began in 1882. Cricket and the Ashes helped form Australia – and continues to do so. Will it help the development of England?

The ceremonies continue, where all pay homage to the support of the Barmy Army (What about your Fanatics, Australia?) with Captain Andrew Flintoff going over to bow to them.

Oblivious children of the Australian players gambol and frolic on empty parts of the paddock. I think of my own childhood, parents and also Freda, my brother Paul’s partner, her friends and family, grieving her sudden loss on Christmas Day. Her funeral is today. Think of her in heaven looking down upon us, smiling.

Cartwheels


Dad, spend more time with us.
Pick up from school, act the fool,
be the long one instead of mum
when we don’t do what we should’ve done.

You’ve missed us, we’ve missed you.
Watch us grow up,
achieve the new.

Run, skip and dance
from dreams and memory
to your final match, here.
Playing games on the pitch
our farewell to you.
A blue dress cartwheel
our turn to show
what we can do.

Cartwheel Cartwheel Cartwheel.

Sydney Day Three – life goes on

Everything went well. No queues of Balfour's chicken and veg pies, straight into my seat in the Doug Walters ash-tray to watch Hussey edge Anderson to Read. Gilchrist nabbed five in the first innings, and three to Read makes eight out of fifteen snaffles to the keeper. Are we on for a world record? Have to put it into the Frindaliser, though what it means in terms of cricket, apart from Langer's contribution of three drops, I'm not sure. Perhaps that the wicket is that little bit bouncier than the batsmen reckon.

The Branson pickle Ashes farrago continues. In this morning's SMH is a story about a couple who flew Virgin to watch the cricket only for Virgin to mislay their luggage ("If you poms keep losing the Ashes, not surprising your airlines lose luggage." Aussie Bloke) It happens, Virgin paid for couple to buy some clothes to cover the hiatus, but couldn't find cricket tickets which the couple put in their stowed baggage - until the SMH published ("More fool them," says Aussie Bloke, "best sewn into your undies if they're not in the Bank of England soap-dish deposit box.")

Now it gets interesting. An unattributable source your intrepid Ashes poet in residence met this morning said Sir Richard Pickle wanted to make the announcement at tea on the centre of the hallowed turf. Apart from clashing with the Boonie/Beefie drag races, it's just not cricket - where Australia are 236 for 5, after fortyfive minutes, Gilchrist already 29 in the mood to Waca Waca. Panesar pegs back progress beating Symonds in the flight, clean bowled 48, 260 for six.

Warne sweeps the next ball for four, then six, not out off a glove when he was, and .....Australia cruise past England's 291 with 14 off a Harmison over, two overs to go before the new ball. Throughout this series England have sought to defend rather than attack with the old ball, a reversal of their approach in 2005. Australia have scored at about two runs a minute during the last half-hour.

I try to defend the MCC retaining the Ashes Urn with the Aussies behind me. 'Awe, we should have them, just to piss off you guys.' I imagine something of the same attitude exists at Lords.

Billy The Finger Bowden saws off Gilchrist's legs caught behind when the noise was the bat hitting the ground, not the ball 318 for 7

Billy Bowden
Pulls the crowd in
With extravagent gesture
And the crook of his index finger

Another keeper's victim, the Frindaliser whirrs - straight through after lunch Flintoff gets Lee ct Read, 10 dismissals out of 18. Warnie reaches his fifty, still to get a test match century. The Barmy Army make as much noise as they can but 'Warnie, Warnie' reverberates around the SCG when he gets to his fifty, a lacing off-drive off Anderson.

Panesar goes round the wicket, Warne hits to point, practices the shot, and then places again just fine of point for four. Couldn't England guess what was going to happen?

Clark skies Mamood for 38. 398 for 9

Enter the Gatorade truck to a standing ovation. McGrath joins Warne in a last stand effort of legends to get Warnie his maiden century. Warnie flip-flops down the pitch to Panesar, stumped the length of Bondi Beach by Read top score 71. Australia 398, another stumper victim. Eleven in the match to date. The Frindaliser, having frindled, Frindles on.

England start at -102 for none. Clarke top-edges Bing Lee for a skier -97 for none. Strauss ducks his head into a Bing bouncer and falls to deck. He seeems okay, readers, thank God they wear helmets.

Strauss lbw Clark 24, England -47 for 2

Bell ct Gilchrist b Lee 28, England -38 for 3. A needless flash, the Frindaliser whirrs.

Pietersen and Collingwood try to steady the ship without becoming becalmed. McGrath bowls eight overs, six maidens, none for six. Pietersen changes bats, has he ever been out to Stuart Clark, who induces Collingwood to edge to Hayden in the Gulley for 17, England -4 for 4. Pietersen and Flintoff at the crease, shades of the end at the Waca. The Frindaliser is unmoved.

Flintoff is stumped millimetres out of his ground off Warne for 7. England +11 for 5 in real money. Superb piece of work by Gilchrist, the Frindaliser goes into orbit.

Panesar comes in as a nightwatchman. In many ways the best day’s cricket of the series.

An Old Scorebox Operator Laments

The game isn’t what it used to be,
nor the creaking knees for climbing creaking stairs
to ring the changes, today they score too damn quickly
for me. Joints need regular lubrication and maintenance,
mine, not just the machinery.

O how I yearn my Slasher MacKay
and Bill Lawry. You could open, pour and drink a long cool one
before they dreamt of hitting off the square. Put your feet up.
O my MacKay and Lawry,
Maybe fifty between lunch and tea, maybe.
Time enough to find the papers, makings,
roll a gasper to inhale each ball
safe in the surity it’d die on my lips

before they turned the old scoreboard over.

Last week they pinned a sign above my head.
‘Living legends don’t smoke’ without mention
to Boof or Warnie - two of the worst.
Gilchrist, Symonds. Hayden and Langer
started it all under the gimlet eyes of Waugh.
They score too damn quickly. Rickety
old me ricketing up those rickety stairs,
reels, numbers and boards. And sometimes
I forget to move on the score
staring at the beauty of it all.

Sydney Day Two – whither the Ashes?

Play started at 10.19, due to time added to compensate time lost yesterday. Why not 10.20 and have done with it? Spurious accuracy in the extreme. The final ov r of the day will have 4.7 b lls, of which 1.37 recurring runs will be scored. Even Professor Fiffle-Faffle, arch-fiend of dubious science acknowledges this to be t tal b ll cks.

Even though I set off ahead of myself I miss the first ball, where Langer drops another at slip. Certainly lives up to the position's name. Maybe his mates are repeating the crowd's Yabba-esque comment 'This is the last test you'll ever play, Langer.'

Yesterday I sat next to the Yabba stand, named after the great Sydney barracker who yelled from the Hill querying England captains about colonial insect and political life -'"Leave our flies alone, Jardine. They're the only friends you've got." and “Dexter, what about the Common Market?” Greg Baum in the SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) bemoaned the lack of wit among the fans, especially his own, the Fanatics. “They mistake noise for wit, identity for character, attention for fame.” Maybe the Beefy Booney game has become too sanitised for its own good.

I missed the oversanitised start of play because of the queues trying to get in and then round the ground. The SCG catering facilities are about as nonged as the MCG, only less variety, but they take the biscuit (except you'd have to queue for it to find they'd run out) when it comes to enabling patrons get to their seats. On the whole Australian test cricket stadia are good. Signs are poor, and hired staff don't know or can’t give correct directions either but the bag searching and electronic ticket scanning works well. Not today. Thundering great queues, and once in, thickets of cops standing around doing XXXX all except get in the way of your trek halfway round the ground to Bay 3 which is both not labelled and incorrectly labelled so Crowd Security directs me to Bay 4 instead. Crowd Security – you feel safe with them.

The Bradman Stand (and he had many with Ponsford, Morris, Hassett, Fingleton, McCabe, Woodfull, but always with himself) is appropriately non-alcoholic. The Don imbibed but hardly drank.

The SCG needs egress around here. The Doug Walters Stand, which by rights should have been smokers only, is about to go. If the SCG want some free heritage advice, I'd recommend moving and restoring the old scorebox obscured by the Doug Walters Ashtray, or even better building an entrance underneath it. Maybe they've already copped this. Aspicked minds think alike.

10.48 Collingwood edges the unspuriously accurate McGrath, ct Gilchrist 27. 245 for 5.

Flintoff drives Lee for a thumping four behind square. At times he makes the game look so simple.

Read survives an imperious LBW appeal from Lee before his captain scampers him through for two leg byes. Next ball, snick to Gilchrist 258 for 6. Mahmood first ball an edged pull to Hayden in the gully. Ditto for 7.

Next over hat-trick ball to Flintoff, the Edgbaston derring-do commiseration pair. Fast, outside off-stump, Freddie watches it go by. An over or two later two driven fours, one nearly bisecting Umpire Billy Bowden with the sound of a high velocity anti-tank rifle. Simple game.

This morning before setting off, but after arranging to meet the head of the British Council in Australia I performed the simple task of polishing my shoes. It was immensely enjoyable, the tactile sensation of rubbing in the polish, then buffing the leather up to a half-way decent shine. A simple game, refreshingly so compared to complex things like e-mails, audio files, mobile phone tariff rates and 10.19 starts.

In essence cricket is simple too. The feel and sound of bat upon ball, willow upon leather, especially if the macau cane handle is in your hands. I loved that almost regardless of the outcome. Emotion has to be tempered to realise ambits.

Gunn & Moore


From water’s edge
to the middle of the ground.
grown straight, selected,
sawn, planed, sanded,
steel and grit balance
out any natural flaws
for the ideal blade
Not left to season
alone but cared for
Well-oiled resilient power
behind the maker’s name

roughed out, air-dried
cleft pressed moulded
and cut for the splice
Of macau cane thrice
rubbered and bound
wedged, clamped, glued
together in steady time
to face being in the middle

Easy in your hands
raise, step back, twiddle,
survey the field, take guard
Ready to do your best
and accept the future

Use wisely without fear
the ball is no part of me.

Flintoff at his best plays the game simply. This series he's struggled with the bat, flailing in the main at balls he shouldn't go for. He just taken five runs off a Clark over, leaving Harmison just one ball to face. Lbw 2. 282 for 8.

Enter the Monty heralded by Billy The Trumpet, to be dropped at slip by, yes, Langer. Even Tufnell was better in the field, he only dropped aitches on a regular basis.

Flintoff half-charges Clark to edge a spectacular but not overly difficult catch to Gilchrist - fifth of the innings, two more than you dropped, Justin. This is the worst stroke of an excellent innings by Flintoff. Not just playing through the V for crushing fours but craftily placed twos, one of the few England batsmen to appreciate the spaces offered by large Australian grounds. His 89 is nearly worth a century, close to a captain's innings, just as he's close but not quite close enough to being a good skipper. It's Freddie going backwards, re-flowering into the player all Australia feared when he strode to the crease in 2005. Feared and admired.

Or something like that as sung by Shirley Bassey

Big Freddie

The minute you walked on the pitch
We could see you were a man of distinction, a real big cricketer.
Soft lad from Lancashire,
Would you let us whisper into your ear?
Stroke it between cover and point,
No need to throw your bat at every ball you see,
Hey big Freddie!
Hit a little six for me.

Would you like to have fun, fun, fun?
After they’ve won, won, won?
Thrash’em at their favourite pastime.
Sink their drinks for a good time.
.
The minute you walked off the pitch
We could see you were a man of distinction, a real big cricketer.
Soft lad from Lancashire,
You didn’t hear what we whispered in your ear.
Stroke it between cover and point,
No need to throw your bat at every ball you see,
Hey big Freddie!
Hey big Freddie!
Hey big Freddie!
Hit a winning six for me.

Warne does Panesar again in flight for another LBW, England all out 291, probably about at least fifty short of par on this wicket. Three of the top six got over forty, none made a century. QED

Australia face a single over before lunch, which makes t tal b ll cks of the t tal b ll cks of a 10.19 kick-off. Why not have lunch straight after England's out, like the old days? Spurious accuracy and tv ad schedules, that's why.

Talking of old days, I'm intrigued by the venerable roller used to roll wickets between innings. Apparently it's about eighty years old which means it rolled the track before Bradman went out to play his first first class innings, and straight back in after collecting a duck.

The Don's views on Australian pies aren't known. Mine are. I take it all back. They don't taste all the same, the market waiting for the special Pom flavour 'Humble.' Today, feeling peckish after an insufficient number of sandwich (one) I found myself in the inner sanctum of the members atop the Noble stand where queues are short to non-existant. Against my better judgement I fancied a pie. Let's face it, Barry Humphries has immortalised this tasty on the Sydney Writers Walk in Circular Quay:-

I think that I could not espy
A poem lovelier than a pie.
A banquet in a single course
Blushing with tomato sauce

Mea Culpea. Fancying a pie with a difference I plumped for the Chicken and Vegetable. Bad move, for me, if not the chicken and the vegetable, because their presence within the crust seemed entirely nominal. Australian pies do not taste all the same. The beef ones are more or less edible. Balfour's Chicken and Vegetable isn't. One bite nearly had me spraying the entirety of Bay Three, the roller and the pitch - Fine projectile vomits from boundary to boundary. Inside a Balfour's Chicken and Vegetable is reject material from the Alien films, a greenish gelatinous gristly goop of extraterrestial sweepings from the intergalactic slop-bucket at the Abbatoir At The End of the Universe. Nobody should be allowed, never mind forced to make, serve and least of all eat this crap. $4.20 straight into the bin marked highly dangerous industrial waste and pies. Balfour's Chicken and Vegetable Pie is an offence against humanity which all Australia should rise up against. Were I ever to enter politics here I'd stand on half-way decent pies, but without much chance of success. Australians are proud, forgiving and ultimately drongo about their pies Bazza McKenzie's lesser ego professes to love so much.

The guts of Australian pies
Puzzle other democracies.
Its electorate aren’t averse
To bull or a whole lot worse.

If the Australian pie industry, not to mention their cricket ground security and caterers off the pitch were to show the same dedication in the pursuit of quality as the Green Baggies do on, it would be far more of a pleasure even as a pom to watch them put us through the mincer.

Australia 87 for 1. Only wicket Langer playing with the same abandon he displayed in his slip catching, snicking one down the leg-side from Anderson, ct Read 27. Billy the Trumpet is reduced to playing the Grandstand and then Sports Report theme tunes - March of the Champions. My start of play stumps prediction of 214 for 4 would be a good result for England, even when Hayden, eschewing Melbourne perserverance, goes hard at a wide one from Harmison ct Collingwood 33. 109 for 2 at tea.

I watch David Gower, Nasser Hussein and David Lloyd bumble to Sky viewers back in England at four in the morning the difference between the two teams. Their hand gestures speak volumes, roughly translated 'country mile.' Elsewhere on the paddock, the Battle of the Tasches Handicap race is between Aussies dressed as blokes, and Poms in dresses. The ladies win hands down and go off beam, signal and course. Maybe that's where we went wrong in our preparation. If only Freddie and the boys had dressed as women rather than played like them. Which is very unfair, not least to women cricket in England and Australia, where the England team still retain the Ashes (see Grace Road, one of the first entries on www.ashespoetry.net)

The Monty comes to the crease and Ponting falls to a fractional run-out direct throw from Anderson for 45, when set like a train. Shades of Pratt at Nottingham. 118 for 3. Clarke directs a Harmison lifter to Read for 11, before a rain break and stumps at 188 for 4. Interesting, still in the Australians’ favour.

Not that the press are there; too busy listening to Sir Richard Branson bang on about the Ashes urn staying in Australia. Three things:-

1. If the English team had made a decent fist of it, they’d not be having this debate.
2. Branson Pickle’s doing this to drum up trade for Virgin Blue, his new kid on the runway to Quantas for domestic air.
3. What’s it got to do with the price of Branson Pickle anyway? Could you imagine a Freddie Laker, or Lord King putting his pennethworth in this?

I admit I might be biased because another of Branson’s enterprises, Virgin Mobile screwed me royally in sending a replacement sim card for my drop-kicked mobile into the Torrens after Adelaide, and still owe me about forty bucks.

More seriously the Ashes Urn isn’t a trophy like the FA Cup; it’s a bequest, a gift from the Darnley estate to the MCC. To demand it as of right from the Marylebone Cricket Club would be like expecting any Australian cricketer to return their baggy green caps after they were dropped or retired.

John Howard, art collector and Australian Premier has backed Branson’s pickled scheme. Maybe the MCC could make it conditional on Aboriginal lands and rights similarly respected? Never mind the Hon Ivo Bligh, what the first Australian touring party to England of 1868, all aboriginals, would make of this is hard to guess. I think the Premier has misjudged the mood of the nation. Tonking the Poms is good, drinking beer is better:-


The Legend Of The Golden Tinnie

Aussie Bloke here

You all know the Legend Of The Golden Tinnie. Back some time in the last century, 1989 as a matter of fact, another Aussie bloke David Boon drank 52 tinnies flying in to thrash the Poms where it matters, and to bring back the Ashes. Except they didn’t, of course, because the Shirts at the MCC lost the pawn ticket yonks ago and could we have what is rightfully ours? Could we cocoa.

You’ve probably seen the brohoa in the paper (There’s only one - The Daily Strine) that the Ashes have come to Oz, just at the time when we didn’t hold them. Guess they must have found the pawn ticket. Took ’em three blokes and a special hermetically sealed container with its own seat in business class, by your leave, to get it here. You could’ve bunged it in an eskie and still have room for three dozen cold ones. Talking of which – I’ll get to that later. Three blokes to mind a four inch high urn? No wonder their manufacturing base is jiggered, couldn’t even manage a press-up in a multi-gym. If they ever decide to give the Elgin marbles back to Greece, they’d have to tow the whole bloody country there. And they’ll probably dob in a knighthood. Arise, Sir Ashes Urn KGB. Be a republican, it’s simpler. Almost as good as being a publican.

Now the pom who flew the Ashes here, Sir Richard Tim-Tam Milo-Milo Lamington-Lamington Branson-Pickle – who’s still a virgin despite or because of all those names - doesn’t want to bung em back. Typical pom, if you ask me, shonky bludger, can’t even trust their own kind. No surprise they lost them in the first place.

Which brings me to the Legend of The Golden Tinnie. Where the VB is it? Number 53, the tinnie Boonie couldn’t drink, the golden one, when all other tinnies are silvery.

The Poms must’ve got their grubby mits on that too.

So have any of you people got any idea where the Golden Tinnie might be?

And more to point, how to get it back before the Poms drink it, the Grail of Australia, the Antipodean Ambrosia, the elixir of life, strength and strinedom ….to win back the Ashes in 2009.

God help us.

Sydney Day Four - Prediction end of series 2.18

Day 2 England didn’t bat at all badly today, and at 4-234 have already made their second highest first innings score of the series. Wicket pretty good, should be aiming for 400 plus, especially with no Hoggard. Less than 350 and the 5-0 starts to ominise itself, weather pending.

Much will depend on how Collingwood and Flintoff fare against the new bunger, and whether Chris Read shows the same resilience with the bat as in the second dig at Melbourne.

Day 3 Not yet seen Tuffers starting to roll up the post-coital gasper.... bit of rsp, Australia 184 for 4.

Sticking with the same prediction tomorrow but the blue baggies this time.

Day 4 Unless the extraordinary occurs, the end is inevitable, just the timing seems in question 2.18 in the afternoon.

Sydney Day One – steady start

It clarted it down this morning, yet play started at 11.40, surprisingly enough without a Barmy Army chorus of "Only rain can save Australia now."

Both teams were presented to the assembled throng in honour of McGrath, Warne and Langer, in order of height if not stature. The England team line up under the flag of St George, something possibly inconceivable a dozen years ago, and the rise of English nationalism as an artefact of Welsh and Scottish assemblies.

All occurs under the watchful flag of Southern Cross flying from the Members Pavilion, which, with its partner to the Final Test Match Ball, the Ladies Pavilion, are perhaps the most elegant cricket buildings on God's Own Earth. As Saint Agnew of Leicestershire would have it, think George Geary stand at Grace Road writ large and then some.

The Australian Opera Bloke who sings the English national anthem over the tannoy adds one of those raised half-octaves as a substitute for talent and fidelity, and in homage to the Aussie habit of making every sentence a question? Later in the day in an attempt to put him straight The Barmy Army sing God Save Your Queen, with the codicil to the tune of 'O my darling Clementine' "Your next Queen is Camilla Parker-Bowles," Tatler readers please note.

Oh, the cricket. England won the toss, elected to bat, and 32 for 0 at drinks, (where the Gatorade truck makes an unwelcome reappearance) At first Strauss set out to disprove the pen is edgier than the blade, especially against McGrath, who opened the bowling at the close of his career.

At 4 for 2 normal service seems resumed when Strauss and Cook are out after being set.

3.20 enter Warne. And the Aussies behind me sing something regarding male genitalia to the tune of Jingle Bells. I put them if not their genitalia straight:-

O Warnie’s balls, Warnies balls,
Warnie’s balls are there to be stroked,
O what fun when the poms have choked
To have Warnie’s balls to stroke

Bell and Pietersen do just that, batting straight through from lunch to tea to put on a hundred just afterwards.

It’s simple to tell
Kevin Pietersen
from Ian Bell

One is quite tall,
the other rather small

But at Sydney today
they both batted rather well

Until KP party-tricked down the wicket to an anticipatory McGrath and I was saying ‘Out’ as soon as the ball left his bat on its way to Mr Cricket midwicket Hussey. Not to be outdone next over Bell didn’t get far enough forward again, and was castled neck and crop inside edge through the gate to mix MetaMcGraths.167 for 4.

Collingwood and Flintoff bat through with some luck but no little judgement to close at 234 for 4, already England’s second highest first innings performance in the test series.

The day was meant to belong to the departing Green Baggies. As Cric Info’s Peter English put it ‘The teams walked out this morning to see the three players' names spray-painted on the ground in a mixture so thick the rain that delayed the start for 70 minutes could not wash it away. Each time McGrath or Warne touched the ball or walked to grab their caps they were cheered like returning heroes and at tea the trio stood at the balcony of the dressing room listening to Time to Say Goodbye. Only the title words are sung in English and the players were unable to mouth the lyrics of the Italian operatic rendition like they did for the national anthem in the morning.’

So my poem of the day is about Stuart Clark, Australia’s leading wicket taker and find of the series. McGrath Mk II in method, he’s not nearly such a demonstrative man. Quite the reverse. Towards the end of the day Flintoff drove him to the long on boundary, touch and go if it was a four or not. They nearly collided as each looked at the ball. Stuart dipped out of the way without a scowl or jibe which would have been de rigour for Glen or Brett. Nice sort of bloke.

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 instaneously 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.