The Gladiatoral Moment

Nine men on the fence at Edgbaston, like schoolboys making room for the big boys to fight. And Fred keeps launching Lee out of the ground.

The Mental Illness Moment

Geraint Jones holes out in the deep at Trent Bridge and we’re seven men down. My wife is on the point of calling NHS Direct as I stalk from room to room with my head in my hands, grey with nausea, muttering “that’s it, we’ve lost, we’re f***ed”.

The Apocalypse Now Moment

At Trafalgar Square a police helicopter flies in front of the sun, its shadow swooping across the face of the National Gallery. The percussion in Bittersweet Symphony crashes in, and on the big screen, Harmison scones Ponting with a short one.

The Actually Slightly Crap Moment

Generic winners’ confetti, generic sponsors’ podium, redundant crystal trophy, no pitch invasion… After a summer of dreaming of Vaughany on the balcony with the ashes, this was … piss-poor. Boo to the ICC, or whoever’s fault it was

Emerson was a rubbish umpire but I think he inadvertently gave Jayawardene’s career a jump-start

At least his umpiring career achieved something then

A look back http://monkeyatthecricket.blogspot.com/2009/01/rewind-1999-birth-of-jayawardene.html

The series coincided with my month’s study leave for my chartered accountancy exams which was an absolute recipe for disaster… Thankfully I bluffed my way through them (only just, I blame Freddie Flintoff that I didn’t win a prize!) and England took back the urn. I did discover that there really only is so much study you can fit in through lunch, tea, and between the close and the Channel 4 highlights show (RIP).

It was just a magical time though, and for me life changing as I never realised just how empty my life was without test cricket, and the England cricket team have become only 2nd in my sporting affections to my football team (Celtic).

My top memories were:

Harmison’s slower ball (“one of the great balls”) to remove Clarke, last ball on the Saturday night, which ‘won’ the test…

…then waking up in a drunken haze the next morning on a friend’s couch, nearly throwing up when I saw the 20 to win, 1 wicket remaining! Then that Harmi full toss driven by Lee to the covers, had to be the boudry to win, just couldn’t look…60 seconds later Jones had taken that tumbling catch. It was so intense it was surreal, one of the most dramatic sporting moments of all time.

On a long drive going on holiday, listening to TMS describe Freddie and Hoggy tear through the Aussie batting line up on the 4th day at the oval. It was pure theatre, and incredible England got a lead after the start the Aussies had…

But the best of all was on the 5th day, as I’d arrived in Bruges with my dad about 1pm on the last day with absolutely no idea of the score. We raced about Bruges trying to find somewhere showing it. Eventually the best we got was a pub with Ceefax!!! If you think cricinfo’s live text is tense, try watching an England batting collapse, followed by one of the great innings on bloody Ceefax (the strong local beer helped a bit)! Two drunk Scottish guys dancing around an empty bar when KP’s ton was confirmed. Eventually we went back to our hotel room and managed to pick up 5live and listened to those magical closing moments… What an end to an amazing summer.

So ‘That’s one-all you Aussie b******…’ counts as sportsmanship does it?!!

My favourite moments:
1) Giles and Hoggard’s little batting partnership that stood up to the speed of Lee and the guile of Warne to get them over the line at Trent Bridge, and the joy on the England balcony afterwards.
2) Flintoff and Hoggard’s bowling on the second last day at the Oval, taking what looked like it would be a massive Aussie lead into a six-run deficit. Boycott’s commentating glee as he watched said bowling.

2. The last afternoon, which beat the above!

3. Oval fourth day – Freddie just bowling and bowling and bowling.

4. Freddie’s ton at Nottingham – and his partnership with Geraint Jones (remember him?)

5. Matty getting a whole series of LBWs at Trent Bridge – all of us going gradually berserk

6. Post Oval drinks at the White Bear in Kennington Park Road.

7. Getting chatted up on the train home from London Bridge…

I started my new job the week after the Oval test finished. Job interviews miraculously seemed to fall into non test days.

The only time I missed a ball was when I was playing cricket myself on a Sunday (when I wasn’t watching it on TV I was listening to it on the radio, whilst following it on Cricinfo and posting the odd comment here). One particular Sunday corresponded with the hairy run chase at Trent Bridge and the scores were shouted out from the boundary at the end of each over.

My most abiding memory was the number of times my wife rushed in from another room every time I shouted when an Aussie wicket went down; she was convinced I’d done myself some mortal injury.

On reflection it was probably the best two month career break of my life.

Edgbaston, day 1, 10.30am, BBC online – “Glenn McGrath has stepped on a ball during warm-up and is OUT of the test match”

- Day five at Old Trafford, Ponting and McGrath hanging on for the draw for the last half hour, to prevent England going 2-1 up. I escaped work claiming a meeting, and crammed into a boozer near Charing Cross station, surrounded by men in suits squeezing their pint glasses tighter and tighter. It was mostly silent, except for when the ball beat the bat, leading to a collective groan. We’d outplayed them so convincingly, that it was difficult to know whether to feel excited for the remaining two tests or that sense of dread that we’d blown our best chance of the previous 17 years…

- Day four at Trent Bridge, Warne coming on to bowl, only a few overs into the innings. I was there, and immediately the target of 120-odd looked twice as big. Wickets tumbled, and a few dozen umbrellas got munched. The only source of comfort, as the 7th wicket fell was some Australian chap next to me who kept telling me England were still odds-on.

I guess the big difference between new-comers and those who’ve been watching Ashes series since 1989 is that the former may have suffered suspense, but they didn’t also have to battle the mystical law that Australians NEVER lose. Thank god we had a South African in our batting line-up, or the law would have been proved right again…