Ashes to Ashes

Today I have been mostly watching the Ashes on TV.

A latecomer to the joys and sorrows of cricket, I find myself now unable to live without the regular updates that the new multimedia world can provide on this most ancient and noble of sports.

My wife doesn't get it at all.

But then she doesn't get the internet either, really. She is of the opinion that all it's good for is looking up what the weather ought to have been like during the previous 24 hours and self-diagnosing a seemingly endless variety of medical conditions. There's a term for this, that I didn't invent but is worth mentioning anyway and that is 'Cyberchondria'. Just love it.

And anyway, we don't need to worry about Swine Flu. There were at least 30,000 people at Lords today who weren't worried enough about it to stay away.

And you'd be hard pressed to find a more contagious looking group of folk than the MCC members. "Ahh, Tarquin, just back from the country, I see (cough)?"... "Indeed, Wilfred old chap (cough), Heavens! That Ponting fellow's a bit of an old goat (wheeze)... Wilfred? Wilfred? I say, excuse me is there a doctor in the pavilion?"

I digress. Cricket in general and the Ashes in particular seems to be perfectly suited to the wondrous panoply of offerings that technology can dream up. I'm watching the Ashes on Sky. Pausing live TV to wind back and see if 'that was a catch?' or 'was that a decent shout for lbw?' I'm calling up the scorecard on the BBC website and poring over bowling figures. And now I'm getting David 'Bumble' Lloyd to send me his latest thoughts, via Twitter to my mobile phone. I'm sure if I had an iphone I could download the 'app' which plugs me directly into Kevin Pietersen's brain. From there I could access all the various nightclubbing/sponsorship deals/types of haircut that he's so obviously pondering whilst he's at the crease. I mean, he's clearly not thinking about 'batting' whilst he's there, is he.

My TV doesn't have HD. Instead, I was watching in High Expectation. And that was the worst thing I could do. An England victory still looks likely but this evening at close of play, like many other England supporters I found myself thinking the worst. It would be just typical of the bloody Australians to knock off the remaining 209 runs or whatever it is tomorrow, without losing any more wickets and snatch a victory. 

But that's the thrill of the game. A five day contest, made up of tiny moments. Six balls in an over, ninety odd overs in a day. Anything could happen. Even the most unlikely event is only another delivery away. The tension mounts as a result edges incrementally closer.