Brilliant

Ah, a fortuitous time for this word. I'm sat on the sofa watching the footage of England maneuvering themselves into a winning position and getting ready to watch them win a series in Australia.

There'll be a fair few people my age (or younger, since I was a late starter) who will remember the 1986/7 tour as their introduction to cricket played on a foreign field. That tour was a first time I stayed up with a radio next to my bed listening to the crackly coverage and it's list of exotic place names (or so I thought when I was 14). I foolishly thought the ease with with we shifted Tim Zoehrer would apply to all English cricket; instead I was treated to 25 years of Ian Healy, Adam Gilchrist and even Brad bloody Haddin rescuing the Aussies on those rare occasions when our bowlers were good enough. And of course most of the time we just had our bowling heads kicked in by Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Dean Jones, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer or any number of ready to roll off the production line batting geniuses that the Australians seemed to be able to pick at will.

Now Ponting's ludicrous 5-0 revenge in 2006/7, which at the time appeared to be an act of will more than cricket, now looks instead like an act of monumental sporting arrogance. The Aussie determination to not only reclaim the Ashes but to crush England for their temerity in 2005 meant that - unusually for them - they failed to introduce younger players into the team as they went. The 5-0 became an enormous bee-sting: it hurt England badly, but did Australian cricket suffer more? The bee is certainly looking a little bit sickly.

Ah, what do I know? All I *do* know is that after all these years it's absolutely brilliant to see England winning in Australia, and doing it as much through their own excellence as Australia's weaknesses. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.