No rest for the Wicket

Not this time - no way - I didn't care that I had to be at ANU by 8am this morning - a busy day today ? surely not - I'm a PhD student! I certainly had no interest in who won big brother, or the secret life of Rolf Harris (as extracted by Andrew Denton). Rather than be distracted by all these irrelevant concerns and happenings, I was determined last night, to sit my arse on that couch, keep the television in direct line of sight (which involved moving the cat), and keep the frequency securely fixed on SBS's coverage of the final days play of the third Ashes test in Manchester.

For those not following the cricket (and this assumes of course, that you are still reading at this point), Australia had to make a world record number of runs to win. This was of course, an entirely unlikely achievement - indeed, even securing a draw seemed improbable - but there was absolutely no way I was going to assume anything (you may recall my false assumptions in the last test match, which sent me to bed instead of watching Australia get within 2 runs of a very unlikely victory). To resist wavering in my resolve, I pulled out "fatso" the coffee plunger (14 cup capacity) and grinded up some of Lavazza's finest, turned the heater off (so as not to get sleepy), and embarked on a caffeine fueled, late night arm chair sports spectacular - and I wasn't disappointed.

For about 10 minutes in the second session of play, the world record run chase looked vaguely possible. However, almost perfectly on cue, such optimism was instantly quashed by the loss of another wicket. In reality, winning the match was never really a possibility, however, to escape without losing the game (i.e. a draw), we simply had to bat out the entire day. This task is apparently not that easy, particularly, it seems, for Australian players who specialise in the art of batting. With the exception of Ponting who finally made a century, there was some dreadful batting (Katich ? what was he doing out there?). So, as in the first innings of this match, and in the last test match, we again relied on our bowlers to bat us out of trouble - and they did! with one wicket left !

Of course, as an Aussie, I want us to win this series. If we don't, I will probably write an angry blog post condemning the team, because let's face it, that is the Australian way. However, it has to be said, this series is just fantastic. This is the most exciting test cricket I think I have ever seen (I can just imagine Aff now making some comment a long the lines of "that's not saying very much!"). The last two test matches have been spot on! However, I think I speak for all tired and strung out Aussie cricket fans when I say "enough!" - we have had our fix of competitive test matches - now lets just go and kick their arse - "old school" style.

Ten days until the next match - I think I'll take some leave!