Why has everybody suddenly become an expert in this noble game? People who never played or attended a match are suddenly praising Jonathan Trott for his dogged occupation of the crease or criticising Paul Collingwood for throwing away his vital wicket and dropping searing catches coming at him at 90 miles an hour! How all of a sudden the mighty Austrailian Cricket Team has been laid low after the hiding they gave England two years ago on their own soil is still a mystery. Flintoff, that lovely jovial giant from Preston who was expected, in this ultimate test
match, to perform miracles with the ball, did hardly anything until he ran out Ponting with amazing agility and this stroke of genius sounded the death knell on Australia's dogged and resilient defence of that precious vase of ashes.
So much happier did the nation feel after the horrors of Headingley where we got whopped for an innings and many runs. How did it turn round in the final test so dramatically especially when so few of our players seemed absent from the party?
Well cricket mirrors life. Sometimes you lose when you shouldn't have done and sometimes you win when you don't deserve it. Sometimes the umpire makes an amazing gaffe and compounds it with another by leaning the other way to compensate for the original sin. I find business is also unpredictable. When we are supposed to be ploughing through a trough of slough, customers keep ordering more furniture. Are people re-furbing their homes because they cannot sell them and have decided to improve the environment for their own benefit or are they investing into a sensational makeover expressly because they want to sell their property for a higher price? One reads that the housing market has improved but I really think it is because the estate agents are placing a lower figure on people's expectations. After all, the street-wise agent
knows they might as well get a small slice of something rather than a big slice of nothing. Moreover, the snatched back properties are filtering on to the market and people with inside knowledge are buying them, not from the worthy occupiers but from the bank or institution who has lent rather too much on them. Very little is heard these days of the dreaded HIPs or Home Information Pack. Has it been swept under the carpet as too much of a bother for the average seller or are buyers skipping the requirement in order to do the deal?
Whatever the figures are, we seem to be incredibly busy and are having trouble keeping up with production. A far cry from the state of play earlier in the year and I put it all down to the England Teams resistance at Cardiff.
Long live the Burnley lad, Anderson and his team mate Monty! (Pic Right)