Ashes to ashes. Oh, England our England! First the football, then the rugby …and now the prettiest balloon of them all has been well and truly pricked so soon after its jingo-jangled and so jauntily buoyant launch. I sense blame about to be heaped on the wives and girlfriends, the dreaded Wags. Cricket’s lot have been landing in Australia all month. Comfort and compassion are suddenly the priority, not, as they’d thought, the top-up of their tans. At least cricket’s Wags seem less brazen and more softly simpatico than football’s slebby femmes fatales in Germany last summer. After his heroic bowling was so wantonly squandered in the debacle at Adelaide, Matthew Hoggard sighed to his Times ghostwriter that at least his disappointment ensured ‘a cuddle from wife Sarah’ when she arrived in Perth. The kids have piled in too: in his Sunday Telegraph diary, batsman Andrew Strauss admitted he’d spent the eve of the opening catastrophe in Brisbane looking after baby son Sam, ‘playing with toys, changing nappies, and guarding against dangerous objects — the perfect foil for all the intensity of morning practice’.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in