Thinking sport

Touring is just a gas - as long as you're with the right supplier

After a Test match at Brisbane that is best described as bewildering - I blame the lack of practice matches - I am happily ensconced in Adelaide, equidistant from the Barossa vineyards and the Oval. There will be no slip-ups here. I am focused, in the zone, and primed. My Ashes tour is about to start.

The only blot on the perfect landscape has been the, pretty much inevitable, presence of so many Australians. They win one Test match and don't they let you know about it. Everywhere I go it's been 'Oi, Pom, 157 isn't a cricket score, it's a darts finish'; 'Oi, Pom, why d'ya bother getting out of bed, you gutless loser?'; and, perhaps most hurtful of all, 'Oi, Pom, where in fuck's name did you get those shorts? They're criminal.'

It is all most tiresome and makes intelligent discourse quite impossible. Undaunted, and in an attempt to blend in and fend off further sartorial attacks, I even humbled myself to the extent of being a Johnny Oz for the day. If something is worth doing it is worth doing well and I gave it the full Barry McKenzie. Larging it around town, pointing Percy at the porcelain, producing the odd Technicolor™ yawn, and asking if I could have a slice of pineapple on my burger. All that effort, all that strine, and what did I get in return: 'Oi, Pom, where in fuck's name did you get those shorts? They're criminal.'

More positively, a fine time was had by all at the benefit match that I organised to raise funds for the Barmy Army trumpeter who was so cruelly evicted from the Gabba. Keen to advance my claims for selection later in the tour, I invited the entire TMS team and made them feel at home. Particularly Blowers who, as the opposition closed in on 400 from their 20 overs, I placed as lone man in the deep. Seldom can a sexagenarian have done so much fielding in temperatures in excess of 100 degrees without suffering a coronary.

Gratifyingly, a number of the England team dropped in for 'afters'. KP, charming as ever, passing on the startling information that his autobiography is being given away gratis if you move your account to Npower.

Change your gas supplier, win a book! Has publishing really come to this? Apparently, and I was on the phone sharpish to British Gas to see if they might be interested in a similar tie-in deal for Quarter-Final: My Autobiography by Sven-Goran Eriksson and Geoffrey Mortlake. They said they'd get back to me.

Meanwhile, Monty was looking rather on the edge of things so I moseyed over and, having been something of a slow left armer in my youth, we compared actions. Detecting a slight kink in his, I attempted some impromptu physiotherapy that resulted in a crack you could probably hear back in Northampton. Monty left the party shortly thereafter. Doubtless to work on his new action.

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