Lording it up.

With broadcasting equipment slung over both shoulders and with my face flushed from two and a half days in the sun I made my way from the Swalec Stadium an over after lunch on day three of the first Ashes Test. Australia were in the ascendency (of course) but England had hit back with three morning session wickets and with two new batsmen in there was a chance we could restrict them to a score not a million miles away from what we had managed.

Turning my back on the action signalled two things. Firstly, another false dawn, as the Aussies steam rollered our bowlers for the following 24 hours. Secondly, the end of my proud run of consecutive Ashes days attended. Taking in six different grounds, over 20,000 miles travelled and two different countries (Australia and Wales) visited I walked away from Cardiff feeling a melancholy that my innings had come to an end. In reflective mood I wondered whether my life will ever allow me to watch 25 consecutive days of Ashes cricket again. And whether I would ever want to.

A week later I find myself at Lords. The home of cricket for everyone but me. My home of cricket will always be The Oval, or maybe my parents back garden, where I spent my summers pretending to be the 80's England wicket-keeper Bob Taylor. Wearing my dads oversized brown garden gloves I spent hours playing throw and catch against the wall above my kitchen window. I'd hurl the ball at such an angle that would require me to dive full length to my right to pouch the ball one-handed in front of a delighted imaginary slip cordon of Beefy, Gower and Lamb.

Then, if my dad, or another willing relative or friend of the family was available, I'd hand them the ball and practice my off-drives and flicks off my legs against either fence. The small size of my garden determined my strengths and weaknesses as a cricketer. I learned how to bat straight and catch to my right. Any stray shot square of the wicket would either go over the fence or destroy the plants. Hook shots and expansive lofted drives back past the bowlers head were a definite no-no unless I had a good supply of tennis balls. While back on wicket-keeper duty a throw to the left of the kitchen wall while wearing my make shift gloves would only result in me diving head first into the rose bush.

But back to the cricket. The real cricket that is rather than the numerous games played in my mind. For at no point during those days in the back garden did I ever envisage that one day I'd trek around Australia watching England getting battered and bruised from Brisbane and beyond. Keeping my spirits high despite the constant capitulation. Forging out a new career that would surpass the one I was already proud to own. And putting in the miles that would mean that when the time came when the boot was on the other foot I would have earned the right to enjoy it all that much more.

I remember my dad saying he felt sorry for Manchester United fans following their treble triumph. Nothing, he said, would ever come close to that success. Ten years on and I'd say that statement still holds true. Imagine, if you will, that you became a Man Utd fan off the back of that season. Forever more every success would be held up against the triumphs of 1999. How can it ever compete? Last season when Fulham managed to avoid relegation I derived a greater sense of enjoyment that my red work colleagues got from seeing Man Utd win the title.

And so to Lords. On day one with England one down, two hundred on the board and one of my favourite cricketers in Ravi Bopara at the crease I was basking in the best days cricket I'd seen in years. The boundary boards had taked a battering as Cook and Strauss flayed the wayward Aussie attack. Surely Australia hadn't bowled as badly in fifteen years. I was loving every minute of it.

Looking back only days one and two at Adelaide could compete with what was on show. Both on and off the pitch that weekend will live long in the memory. Although it made the last day defeat that much harder to bear as the Ashes were all but lost in horrific and historic circumstances. Our dreams and hearts broken by Aussie cricketers and American maidens. Payback, I figured started here. But that would be too easy wouldn't it? And so it proved as England went on to lose wickets at regular intervals. Bad technique and good deliveries did for Cook, Bopara and Pietersen. Poor play did for Prior, Flintoff and Collingwood. Initiative firmly handed back to the opposition.

And when three wickets fell within the first fifteen minutes of the second day my feelgood factor seemed a lot further away than a single session and one half. But this being England and this being the Ashes it was never, ever going to be easy was it? Enjoy the good times a wise man once said. And with Ponting back in the hutch, the Aussies 49 for 2, nearly 400 runs shy of England first innings total, with heavy cloudy overcast skies covering Lords, and with four fast bowlers keen to get the ball in their hands, its time to sit back and enjoy watching the Aussies squirm from my private booth in the space age media centre. I can't think who deserves this more. Me or them.



Not that I took any enjoyment from an on field injury. But this is the moment that Hauritz dislocated his finger attempting to catch Strauss - the England captain strode down the wicket and smashed one straight back at him.