Enjoy the good times (another reprise)

For the first evening in four I didn't daydream on the walk back from the Gabba. It was dusk when I left the ground & overhead in single-file big brown bats followed me on their nightly journey across the city. Early evening diners were lined up along the riverfront bars and restaurants next to the Yarra which runs through Brisbane. I'm sure it was a similar scene to that which I'd walked past every evening but on this occasion I took it all in.

There was no point dreaming about the what if's last night because I'd just seen it happen. The evening before for perhaps the thousandth time in my life I had imagined a brave England rearguard action. But for the first time ever what actually occurred surpassed what I had dared to dream. I'd hoped for six wickets at the end of play and we ended up with nine. I'd hoped to win two sessions we'd won three. I'd hoped we land a couple of blows to the Aussies and at the end it looked as though we'd knocked them out.

As the clock ticked past seven pm in Australia and across the world in chilly England people started to wake up deliriously happy texts started arriving in my phone. They were from excited family members who'd approached Ceefax or the internet with trepidation. As I slowly made my way back to my hostel I basked in my surroundings & in the glow of contention. I might have been feeling crabby last week, I might have been questioning my desire this week but now I was feeling damn fine.