An excellent email from Robert Wilson to get you in the mood:
“Dear Sam, Hello there. I’m feeling grateful tonight. Ok, I admit it’s been a big night. I confess that I’m fresh out of a bibulous Parisian dinner party. Quails have been quaffed and drinks have been drunk, Doesn’t matter. My current state of egregious euphoria has nothing to do with Chablis (nor my first cigarette in 18 months), this, this is immense. Thank the Lords and Gods of cricket happenstance that this last Ashes Test takes place at a ground from which on video you can see hills and houses and trees. No concrete bowl of anonymous, vacuum-sealed stadiumitis, the Blundstone is a location with a sense of place – with all the provincial excellence that this entails. It’s making me happier than I deserve to be. There is no five-fer nor unlooked-for ton that is not ennobled by the fact that some neighbouring resident is definitely watching it from their kitchen.
Plus, my ludicrous euphoria is entirely justified. Now I’m not a passionate adherent of all things Nathan Lyon. I can take or leave him (he can be a big old drag in the newspapers before a series) but his three sixes against the fastest bowler of the series don’t just make me feel extremely unsuicidal, they make me feel glad to be concurrently alive in the way that people felt when Tolstoy was knocking his stuff out back in the day. I mean, oooooof.
Every now and then, mere dignity compels you to stop complaining all the time and just admit that it’s pretty sensational to be alive right now. Thank you Hobart. Thank you Nathan. Robert Wilson”
With the series in its final throes, we’re finally seeing some public advocacy for Justin Langer. Last night, Steve Waugh “took” to Instagram to back JL, and now his brother, Mark, seems to have done the same…
Here’s a deeper, better account of yesterday’s cricket from The Guardian’s chief cricket correspondent, Ali Martin …
Hello again!
Here we all are, this 23rd day on the Ashes calendar (give or take a few early finishes), gathered again for another round of story-making because we can’t get enough. If you’re doing this from the earliest of hours in the UK, more and all power to you.
Though they bookended it with a bit of success, it was another reasonably rough day for the visitors yesterday. 17 wickets fell, 10 of them England’s, as another 2-out-all-out performance resulted in 188 runs on the board, 115 short of Australia’s total. Root briefly threatened. Cummins took 4. You know how it goes by now.
There were some fireworks in the last hour as Broad continued his dominance over Warner, Marnus exited and Khawaja succumbed to Wood, and now England will be hoping the steamrolling can continue this afternoon. That England had yet to post in excess of 300 was the prevailing statistic yesterday, and with Australia 150 ahead, they’ll need to mobilise some wickets quickly to give themselves any sniff of an unlikely victory.
The wicket is tough and Australia will look to build that lead however possible, but whatever the case, we can probably expect some explosive cricket because not only is the pitch willing, it may be that both teams are equally willing to finish things off soon, whatever the result.
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