Jun 25 – AUS Vs Kent – Day 1

Diary of the 17th Man

Let the games begin!

After the rather one-sided Tour of the West Indies (The Prof won all the games of Spot The Case of ABC Bias we played on iView) it’s good to be back in England. It should be an interesting series – England for some reason are all cock-a-hoop after beating the Kiwis in the ODI and T20 fixtures with a team of waifs and strays, while the test Team, it must be said, was pretty listless scrambling to a 1-1 series draw. [Ed. Did you have that sentence vetted by the Psychological Warfare Unit?]

Sir Captain was unable to do the One Thing that he has to get right (he lost the toss) but the charitable Kent Captain sent us in regardless. That left The Prof and I with nothing to do but get out of the dressing room and leave the nervous nellies to their pre-innings rituals.

There was a good crowd in, but we managed to find a couple of seats by ourselves in the outer. Talk quickly turned to the team’s prospects against England, and how we were going to find a winning edge .[Ed In the absence of either of you playing, that is.]

“Have we heard anything from Deep Third?” The Prof asked with a gentle touch of warm beer froth on his upper lip.
“Not yet, but the lines of communication are open. He can contact us on Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest.”
“What about that Barmy Army contact. Dennis was it?”
“He’s got our new secure mobile phone numbers. He said he’d pass them around.”
“I’m not sure that’s what the Head of Security had in mind, but it will work.”

I took a big bite from my pork pie. “This beats a quinoa salad.” Which wasn’t saying much – the pork pie was about the same temperature as the beer.

On the field, Junior Marsh and UnLucky went crazy in their duel for one of the opening positions in the First Test. It will be interesting to see who gets to watch from the non-strikers’ end while Puff gets stitched up by Jimmy A on 8 July. The jury is still out.

Australia 3/Million.

Read all about the last two Ashes Series with The 17th Mans’ Big Ashes Box. Out now in ebook from amazon.