Trent Bridge whodunnit

I’ve only really experienced catastrophic collapses second-hand: England all out for 51 against the West Indies, West Indies all out for 87 against Australia, Australia all out for [can’t remember beyond 9/21] against South Africa… and I’ve wondered how it was to experience it first hand. Turns out it’s a combination of disbelief, frowning and comfort eating. I was finishing up some stuff in the kitchen when the game started, so had the radio on and the ACF streaming on the laptop, and the streaming was seriously about 2 balls behind the radio, so Aggers and Bloers would start screaming and I’d have to stare at what seemed like an endless age of innocence before the meteor struck. It seemed impossible it would continue and it seemed impossible it would not continue, because it was like landing in the middle of an English schoolboy’s daydream, and while the daydream is preposterous, he is calling all the shots. I sat back and made popcorn.

I have mentioned before that I have a very poor sense of causality in sport and see it essentially in terms of colour and movement like a tiny baby. So as far as my judgement goes, what happened last night may as well have been caused by a poltergeist as any skill, design or lack thereof in batting, bowling and fielding. I can barely watch people hold valuable fragile objects because whether they will drop it or not seems almost random to me, as if anyone at any time could have a petit mal seizure and lose their grip or be knocked over by a surprise albatross (YOU NEVER KNOW); as if the object itself could decide to wriggle free. I’d say that this attitude is derived from my own clumsiness, except I’m pretty sure the clumsiness is derived from the attitude. If I’m sceptical about my ability to avoid or control inanimate objects at will, why bother trying? So I’m both fascinated by the skills with objects sportspeople demonstrate but also unable to really see those skills and hence believe in them fully. I tend to understand causality backwards: we won, therefore we played well, we were just lucky that playing well led to a win. After all, if we’d lost we wouldn’t call it playing well any more. After 15 years watching cricket I only realised last game that when I watch the ball I am only watching for what happens – runs/no runs, out/not out – rather than what is happening. It explains a lot about my lack of progress in the "understanding" area.

Anyhoo, I’ll be touching down in Heathrow a couple of days after this series ends and this is starting to look more and more like being lowered into the lions’ den. Can we make it out from here? Once upon a time I thought of Australia as good at come backs when all seemed lost, but maybe that was when it was possible to wake up in one of Shane Warne’s daydreams instead of this one.