The night before an Ashes series is one of the most exciting dates in the sporting calendar. Especially when it's an Australian series. There's something super cool about knowing that for six weeks you'll be one of perhaps millions of people wishing the day away so that you can park yourself in front of the television at close to midnight while the rest of the house is quiet.
Many a long winter has been punctuated by a glowing rectangle of green in the corner of the room beating out heat while the outside temperature drops to minus numbers. There's the balance to be struck between drinking the right amount of booze to rightly celebrate this quadrennial pleasure. Too little is not right. Too much and you could well be waking up parched in the middle of the lunch break. And then, for the waged, the knowledge that a hangover at work on a Thursday morning is one of the worst feelings in life - the knowledge that the day will be a trial - and Friday will be too...
What will the series hold? For many years - 20 in fact - it heralded a drubbing. We tuned in with hope only to see Australia bat all day two down or the Barmy Harmy fire the first ball into Flintoff's hands at second slip. Even in 2009 we were under the cosh on Day One and didn't recover until Day Four.
This time round it has arrived a mere 65 days after perhaps one of the least interesting Ashes series ever. Sounds harsh but there was very little to recommend the Summer series in England. Trent Bridge was a massacre made to look close by one of the most ridiculous debuts (Agar) in the history of the Ashes. Lords was as embarrassing for Aussies as... you name your most embarrassing England performance in those 20 years. The series was pretty much over after two games and no one was surprised when the calamitous Aussie batting capitulated in Durham.
So thank goodness for the Aussie press in the run up to this first Test. Baiting KP, giving us the redemption of Johnson, talking up the Aussie bowlers, rubbishing Cook's captaincy, reminding us of the pissing incident at Lords, trashing our change bowlers... Sowing discord and rancour everywhere... Talking up the home side... Reminding us that the arena is called the "Gabbatoir"... It's all good. Wickman is up for it. Wickman wants to watch again. Wickman is prepared to put up with the withering glares as Mrs W goes to bed alone and has no sympathy in the morning... It's the Ashes. the Aussies really care. And if they care, that makes it a contest again after the surrender of the Summer when the same journalists were handing us the urn gift wrapped before the team had left India, never mind started smacking around our schoolboys in bars.
Game on.
2-1 England by the way...
Hampton Wick Royal Cricket Club * 1863 - 2013 * 150 Glorious Seasons
