When Simon announced on Twitter that he'd be running a competition for an evening with Mr Strauss re-enjoying last winter's cricket down under, I assumed that (a) the question would be completely impossible (certainly a characteristic of other competitions that the Analyst has run on Twitter) and (b) the world, his brother, his dog and Geoffrey Boycott's grandmother would enter. The task was to identify a player on the Cricket Analyst mobile app (iPhone/Android), which some might cynically think was a sales ploy. Even if it was, the purchase price was insignificant compared to the prestige of the prize. Anyway, I had already obtained the app for a bargain price at the end of some irrelevant one-day international tournament held on the sub-continent. I assumed that the player would be someone very obscure. Actually, it was Brad Hogg and, very helpfully, the app told me so. I emailed my answer off to Simon, wished him well with sorting through the avalanche of replies and hoped that he, Mr Strauss and the lucky winners would have a very happy evening. Then I moved on to waste (sorry, invest) time on some other pursuit.
I think that there were two factors in my favour. One, the competition was running early-afternoon in the middle of the week. Two, and possibly more significant, entry was to be made by email not Twitter reply; plenty of people didn't seem to have noticed that. When an email from Simon Hughes dropped in my inbox, I assumed that it was of the polite "sorry, but thanks for your interest" kind. Amazingly, no, I had won. I thanked him immediately and profusely and then checked that the prize was two tickets. Apparently, no, it was only supposed to be one, but he was prepared to make an exception. More thanks, apologies for seeming cheeky and off to break the news to my best cricket girlfriend.
Joining instructions required us to make our way to The Park Club in west London (a very obscure part of town for me) and to be attired in the ubiquitous "smart casual". Full of excitement, but still not quite sure what would be happening, we complied, presented ourselves at reception as "guests of Simon Hughes" and found ourselves in a large white marquee, seated right at the front on Table 1. I found my nerves rising to a level similar to that I'd last felt on 24 November 2010 waiting for the series to begin. Suddenly, Mr Strauss was on the stage in front of us, sporting a rather severe haircut, which you might have noticed in the publicity photographs of the new trio of England captains taken the following day.
We saw, cheered and clapped lots of footage from the five Test Matches. Simon Hughes asked our captain lots of decent questions and an occasional rubbish one. We knew how Mr Strauss had felt getting out to the third ball of the series: we'd all watched and endured it with him - and feared what disaster might follow. He handled them all with aplomb, humour and honesty. Time flew by, we got some good insight into how our captain felt about his own performance, those of some of his fellow players, and what he thought of the Australian captain's "new" hair (amongst other things).Whoever had the very bright idea of serving a supper of curry and rice was a genius; whoever thought that an early-May evening event in a marquee in London did not need heating was not. It was terrific to relive those memories, and in such special company, but it would have been even more fab if it hadn't been quite so chilly. (Memories of the MCG on Boxing Day 2006 returned.) Finally, the video footage reached the marvellous moment when Strauss raised the urn, red and white tickertape fell and I felt almost as excited as I had four months earlier. There was a raffle for charity. Someone won a bat: not me, but I felt that I'd been plenty lucky enough just to be there.
A truly lovely evening. Thanks, once again, to The Cricket Analyst and Twitter - and to Mr Strauss. Long may you remain our captain; those other two are the heir and spare, and long may they stay that way.
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