Lights out

I had all my "damp squib", "bang to a whimper" remarks lined up, but they managed to put on a show in the end. I even predicted the Australians would open their second innings with Warner and Watson and went off to make popcorn, though that gambit didn't quite pay off. I suppose English supporters might have been whimpering at stumps, but it seemed poetic justice to me: if you wanted to win, you shoulda played to win, all the way through. 

I missed the "show" on Friday, a propos, and missed no show at all apparently, my friends seemed only to have seen red. Jonathan Agnew was crazy enough at the beginning of yesterday to hope - and think it possible - that England might declare, but I don't know what England he was thinking of. He'd seen Jim Maxwell propose to his lady friend the night before, so his head was obviously full of hearts and flowers and fairy dust.

I suppose there was poetry in the umpires getting the final word as well. I felt sorry for them, and a bit worried for their persons. I think a lot of the hoo-ha about the DRS in this series was more to do with poor umpiring on the field and poor understanding of the burden of proof between the on-field and third umpires. Someone somewhere has done a diagram of all the alternative universes that might have existed had all the wrongs been right. But what would we have had to talk about? Tony Hill giving Ryan Harris out lbw to an empty field must be one of cricket's most poignant images.

I mostly listened to the radio, reverting to the Fox team during the breaks. I really enjoyed Damien Martyn on the radio. For someone who had a bit of a reputation as skittish and aloof when he was playing, and who bizarrely ended his career by skipping the country in the middle of an Ashes tour, he just seems relaxed, smart, understated and easygoing. I don't know whether he is more so now than he was on television in 2009, or whether it's just easier to hear with the hypnotic effect of his face out of the way. He sounds very different to how he looks.

On the field, I really, really liked Steve Smith this series. I don't know how he conveys calm and focus when he is such a twitchy little bird, but I always felt like I was in good hands when he came out. Maybe it's that his nerdiness is reassuring. Something about his slight overbite reminds me of Judi Dench, but I'm not sure I can get many people to go along with that.

Maybe Ashes series seem so intense because most of the audience is sleep deprived and emotional in any given game. Ashes series on the other side of the world take over my life in a way that home series don't. They're more demanding, because I'm not on the light duties of summertime, and I will sit in front of a whole "day" of the cricket at night in a way I tend not to when it's on during my day and I'm going about my business. It's great, but messy - I have to go do some cleaning.