I saw as my farewell to the major stage of cricket, and it would be dishonest to say I saw it sentimentally as an actor or an opera singer who wants to leave the stage with a memorable performance...I hoped to return to Australia for the fifth time, this time as England captain, and win the Ashes with the team I had built, nurtured and encouraged. I was to learn, or course, that such romantic conceptions are not only born in the minds of fiction writers, but can die there as well.