Love this story about Read losing it. Could be the making of him frankly. Read’s not helped himself in the selection stakes just because of who is - a Tim Henman in wicket-keeping gloves.

We need to see some more of that fight and spirit if he wants to bat at 7 for England again. He was a spine-less walking wicket in the West Indies in 04, before Jones ended his misery. You could see, mentally, he couldn’t cut it. It was made worse by Giles coming out after him with his first vital, nuggety, ‘we need someone to hang in there’ knocks.

We know what he can do with the gloves, but you can see how stressful it is with Hoggard now (probably) at 8. Takes Jones out of the equation and we’re knackered. The more we see of the fight, and the less we see of the Henman - the better it is for all of us.

About the Ashes seats, I’ll feel sorry for Brits denied their SCG cricket club membership when I can get a membership at Lords.

Why would the SCG want to sell 4 years of domestic cricket tickets to people who live thousands of miles away? They’ll have a bunch of empty seats. Maybe they should let people join in such a way that the tickets stay in Oz, and any tickets unclaimed a week before the match go to charity.

As for the fist fight story, that’s just not cricket. There’s a line between being a fiery competitor and being violent. It’s best that everyone gets the message that you don’t cross that line.