Number One Team Whitewash

Hard to feel able to do justice to the England cricket team's achievements during the recently concluded series of Tests against India. Perhaps a collection of a few of my best memories - in words and photographs - is the way to go.

Victory at Lord's in the First Test, by nearly 200 runs, was somewhat (bit of an understatement) marred by the inability of a "friend" to deliver on his promise to join the fifth day ticket queue at the crack of dawn. Thinking back now, he said that it was so that I needn't curtail my beauty sleep … surely a clue there to a flawed character? My wrath at finding that he'd been in the St John's Wood area since a fairly suitably early hour but hadn't actually felt the need to join the queue was amazingly quietly controlled. I walked the considerable, and twisty turny, distance from the East Gate to the end of the queue just for the hell of it and then turned on my (high) heel and when home to enjoy the play and the victory in the comfort, warmth and sunshine of my back garden with TMS and Tash as perfect company. Lessons learned: (a) if you want something done properly, do it yourself, and (b) never trust a Middlesex supporter (even if he claims to support Surrey too)!

The Second Test, at Trent Bridge, delivered victory well inside four days by 300+ runs, and with a hat-trick from Stuart Broad thrown in along the way. It seemed difficult to believe that England wasn't going to win all four and take the Number One status from India … but harder still for me to forget how many times in the past seemingly simple plans had gone so badly awry in the hands of England cricketers.

My best moment of the Third Test at Edgbaston - and possibly the whole series - came during the afternoon of the fourth day when I released that I was watching England play cricket without any fear that it would all go horribly wrong. An unusual, but very welcome, feeling. Long may it last. The pain, despair and misery of so many England collapses, thrashings and humiliations over the years were erased as England cruised to 710-7 and from there to a four-day victory by an innings and 200+ runs, picking up the status of Number One Test Team in the World in the process.

The Fourth (and last) Test was my "home" match at The Oval. I had tickets for the first, third and fifth days and was really looking forward to sharing the first two of those with my bestest cricket girl pal (and her brother-in-law on the Saturday).

Not the weather I ordered.

Bananas beat All-Comers

The weather gods, however, had completely different plans and conspired, with an elegance of timing, to deliver rain to SE11 on the stroke of lunch both days. On Thursday, we stuck it out while being entertained by an impromptu Bananas v All Comers match at the front of the Lock Stand, before admitting defeat and heading home, damp, cool and expecting much better on Saturday.

Somewhat churlishly, I admit, my best moments of the match probably occurred on Friday, when I was listening/watching at home. Both Bell and Pietersen had the decency to get their centuries, so I didn't have to stand and applaud my two least favourite current players (revisit the end of Mr Thorpe's international career to appreciate the reasons). Nuts, who I still can't recognise as a Surrey player, went one further and got out before the close of play so I didn't have to see him bat "in person" on Saturday.

Just a tad too wet and gloomy for play

Day 3 started off OK weather-wise but the rain again came at lunch and we gave in after a couple of hours and headed home. In what felt like a spirit of blind optimism, I got a re-admission stamp on my wrist (which took three days to wash off). This actually turned out to be shrewd fore-sight as by late-afternoon Kennington was basking in sunshine under clear blue skies and play resumed for a couple of hours. During which Tendulkar came in, was cheered almost constantly by the huge Indian contingent in the crowd and then got out, without achieving that hundredth hundred.

The 80th (& final) Indian
wicket of the summer falls

My heels and I enjoy the space
and view of the Pavilion Top

On Monday (Day 5), I started watching in the crowd-packed stands but soon defected and traded in my general public ticket for a Member's Pavilion Seat and watched the rest of the day's play and enjoyed the victory, by an innings and a handful of runs, from the lofty heights of the Pavilion Top, where I felt much more at home - and had much more room to stretch out my legs. Apart from the victory, my highlight of the day was waving my England flag and "singing" Jerusalem three times. Shame practically no-one else seemed to know the words and sincere apologies to all those in sufficient proximity to me to have to suffer so many off-key notes.

What a way to treat Veuve Clicquot!

The ground staff was not amused by
thecelebratory red & white streamers.

Despite the Indian cohort of the crowd hoping against hope for a Tendulkar miracle, in the end England took only slightly longer to get the last seven Indian wickets than they did to finish off, and casually discard, their celebratory bottles of Veuve Clicquot. Oh well, having completed the first series whitewash since 1959 (or some such date) and becoming the Number One Test Team in the World (did I mention that already?) perhaps they can be excused such a minor aberration.

So, that was it, the international summer finished - unless one counts ODIs and T20 matches, which I don't this time since I'm going to be out of the UK for almost all of them - and the usual feeling of missing it already descended. This time, of course, it was meeting the undiluted joy of such a marvellous all round performance, which I fully expect to be repeated throughout the forthcoming winter, just like the last one. Hmm, this winning thing is becoming something of a habit - and a very enjoyable one at that. And I feel that I've really earned if after so much suffering over the past 30-ish years!