There’s only one thing that anyone is talking about today, the start of Series 4 of Spooks has been completely overwhelmed by one of the biggest sporting contests around the prize for which has to be the smallest trophy going. Bizarrely on a day where the country is united in sickies and duvet days, I took an early dart from work, due to a head cold and eye infection that means that any attempt to look at my computer screen sends me dizzy. Lucky old me then! I get to see the strangest end to a sporting contest I can remember.
The series has had a couple of extremely dramatic finishes, but this was anything but. The match was already dead, and the ashes won, well before Warne saw to Harmison and for the umpires to force the Aussie batsmen out to play was a little cruel, but then to offer them the light within the first over was just rubbing it in a little bit. then there was the wait, no one was quite sure what was going on until in a piece of ceremony that you couldn’t see Dickie Bird and David Shepherd bothering with the umpires marched to the middle, paused at the centre of the wicket then slowly went their separate ways to remove the bails and call stumps.
Not quite enough to write a song about, and forgetting the fact that they never leave Lords anyway, but the ashes were coming home.
So why am I waffling about cricket? Well first off, it’s my site and I can do what I want; secondly, there’s a point. The way that Duncan Fletcher has taken a bunch of inexperienced, occasionally wayward but still promising cricketers and turned them into a side that can beat the undisputed best team in the world over 5 tests is an inspiration to any team. The way they have gone about this Ashes series is a blueprint for any team that wants to succeed. Team spirit is paramount; the number of players used was kept to a minimum, each man knows is job and what is expected of them and if one man fails the next is ready to stand up and be counted. Of course it helps if you have players with the necessary quality.
Latics can take a lot from this Ashes victory. Like England they are underdogs in what they are trying to achieve, Jewell puts team spirit at the centre of what he does and whilst we may be lacking in ‘World Class’ players we’re not looking to compete at that level just yet. Just like during the ashes there will be times this season where it is easier for our lads to give up, if they look to what happened across the course of this summer they will see the rewards of standing up and fighting against those situations. It’s a mental strength thing, and if they keep together who knows what they can achieve.
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