Please God, make it stop, or rain at least?

I’m not entirely sure at what time it stopped being fun and started feeling like really long, painful, dental treatment. It is hard to say. Maybe it was Friday afternoon when Clark and North batted through the afternoon session, after Anderson had given us the briefest of hopes. Maybe it was Saturday morning when I was finally able to sit on the sofa, in the living room, and watch it live on the TV. There was, in my mind, at least, still a glimmer at that point. Knock ‘em over cheaply first thing, put another 400 on the on the board and leave them a little chase on Sunday afternoon and who knows. Of course this was always a ridiculous notion; the game was up when our boys failed to get big scores after bright starts.


It was over when we applauded Matty Prior for his ‘cracking little knock’ of 56. It turns out that that wasn’t such a good innings after all. Marcus North has since re-educated us on what a good innings from a Test match number 6 looks like. In comparison to North’s relatively chanceless 100, Prior’s quick-fire contribution now looks impulsive and ill-disciplined. Australia could literally have batted all day and all night, everyday, until their plane leaves in September.


Now we all remember the dark days. The days before first Nasser Hussein, and then Michael Vaughan helped to transform England from a team of bottlers into a side that could triumph under pressure and take on the best in the world, and win. Obviously this one bad display does not mean we have immediately regressed by 10 years. But, on Friday and Saturday that is how it felt, particularly as the Aussies came out and took wickets straight away before tea. The home attack was lifeless, without inspiration or hope. The tourists pumped out their chests and made themselves some chances with determination and passion.


All that said, we may still sneak a draw from this shambles of a performance, if the batsmen can finally reign in their suicidal instincts, the threat from within far greater than anything the Aussies can offer. Even a defeat is not the end of the world, if 2005 is to be taken as an example. However, Lord’s in 2005 was different, fight was shown, gauntlets laid down, Ponting’s men won that test but we made them fight for it and left them a few scars to remember it by. This Cardiff Test match, the experts said, offered England their best chance of a win this summer. The pitch will turn, they have no spinner, confidence was high. Instead the Australians have taken that confidence we had and smashed it to the boundary for two, long, sapping days. England need big improvements, and quickly or else Glenn ‘5-0 to us mate’ McGraaaaaaaaath, may prove to be the wisest man in cricket. And nobody wants that.