The Ashes Again

Wickman loves the Ashes. He particularly loves the Ashes when they are in Australia. There's something incredibly evocative about the deep midwinter night starting at 5pm and then having to wait 'til half an hour before the new day to see a gleaming square of green radiate across the sitting room and bathe you in a bright new Australian morning.

The last couple of times out the series haven't started well. Nasser's Brizvegas nightmare and the injury to Simon Jones are just two moments of hell. Freddy F's awful captaincy experience in the last show was just too difficult to bear even for seasoned England watchers like Wickman.

You have to go back to 1987 when Stuart Broad's Dad and some of the England greats of the period like Ravey Davey Gower and Lamby and Iron Bottom took the Aussies apart all series (there was even a spectacular one day victory when, from an impossible position, Lamby won a one day international scoring something like 17 from the final over). A young man in his first job, Wickman was late for work every test morning for two months. He would stay awake until his lids couldn't stay open any longer and wake up again early shocked awake by a wicket or or commentary highlight before moving the portable into the bathroom to watch every moment as he tried to drag himself inot his clothes.

Then, if necessary, a radio would be taken on the train to London to catch the last plays.

It's not the same now. Cardiff Wickman's arse. The Ashes will start with Wickman in a client meeting. The meeting will be full of people that don't understand the butterflies, the history, the legends. He'll position himself so that he can see the news bulletins in the reception telly. They'll be single men in the pub at lunchtime nursing a pint of IPA and eating a beef and horseradish sandwich waiting to catch the first balls of the afternoon session.

Over the season, if England do well, the media support will swell and people who ask you "who's winning" on the first morning will start to come out of the woodwork tellilng you that their favourite batsman is Bishen Bedi and Chris Tavare is their model England player. Hey ho...