The Bogfather missed the Ashes Panel, but he did provide me with his poetic input, so I thought, why not. Give him the floor….

So the Ashes Summer, in rhyme….

Where’d our summer go?

Where was the ebb and flow?

No context nor contests

Paucity in every city’s Test

No fight, no thought

Test cricket out-fought

By incredulous scheduling

And nebulous reasoning

If it swung, we won

If it didn’t, we were undone

Batting collapses, memory lapses

No guts in weak glory

Same old media story

Three day Tests played

With real fans betrayed

Enthusiasm drained

Thankfully, then it rained…

Dross on the pitch, not blood

Press puffery not in drips but floods

Strokeplay straight out of kintergarden

Nary a sign of batsmen battle hardened

Bar Root, Rogers and Smith

Far too much inelegant biff or miss

Tho’ I do have a soft spot for Mo

Briefly seen in scintillating flow

Saddened that Buttler never gave it a go

And Cook’s self love and batting ego

Left Lyth high and hopelessly run dry

The question now – who next to try?

Bell seems to have rung his last peal

KP back? We have to be real

Hales not to open, or even at three

Play him at 4/5 is what I’d like to see

Alternative opener is hard to call

We need a presence to strike thru’ the ball

Perhaps Root to three now that Cook ‘leads’ on

Save the captaincy for when sheep has gone…

At last some bowling that found the right length

Some excellent spells, Broad best, true intent

Yet when conditions weren’t as we’d like

The lack of variety left us unable to strike

And with the spin cupboard currently bare

We have to trust Mo’ with responsibility there

Push him up the order to five, use his batting flair

And ferchrissakes give Adil a run, in the UAE sun

Use Jimmy only when conditions suit the grumpy one

Look after Wood, let Stokes have free rein

Or injury management will be spotlit again

Not that the ECB will ever care a jot

Coffers still filling from us, the mob lot

So the Ashes, yes, we beat the feeble Aussies

Yet I still can’t separate the team from the ECB

For their ignorance and bullshit still riles me

And don’t even get me started on the ICC3…

To paraphprase Craig Doyle in those Everest adverts…. now you didn’t think a blog would give you that, did you?

My thanks to the Bogfather. We’re being different here. He’s also promised me a book review of the Barry Richards story written by Andrew Murtagh.

Also Sean B has promised me something too. So no getting out of it, Sean!

Cheers,

Dmitri.