Like many a good Brit I have been up half the night, it being a holiday today. I don’t care that we have lost the series,  this is a one-off which either side could win. So far both sides are doing their best to lose the game with Australia losing all of their wickets for 152 and at the time of starting this boxing- day blog, it is just before 5 am and England have four wickets down for 16 runs. The latest of these wickets is Root. I could go on and at the rate that Brooke is playing, we may have a winning advantage at close of play or be all out (more likely).

There are a record 94,000 people in the Melbourne ground and it’s noisy, noisier than the Dorset night which is yet to get the morning burst of birdsong. To be fair to Brooke we (he) are/is now past 50 and this is quite something

Not much more than an hour in and Eng;land are 52-4

I don’t want to cause another collapse but right now , following a filthy first shot, Brook has played well (apart from nearly getting stumped to a medium fast bowler.

As a non-drinker (for more than a year so I can call myself that), the drunken antics of some of our players (especially one of our steady openers) is not to be praised, Root’s 15 balls faced for a duck suggests that there are two schools of thought in the team and two  types of behaviour.

I could watch this on Sky but I’d prefer to blog commentate for my kind readers who are sticking with me as I go through a lead period of news and views on pensions and investments,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/cx2xeyj8d99tI will use the stability that has followed (eg we haven’t lost another wicket for half an hour~), to praise the magnificent commentary on BBC’s radio commentary.

It is best that I get off the blog at this point. Our first four player’s score was the fourth lowest in aggregate of an England innings ( one from 1904). I do so love the wealth of data that support this game and is available to our team of commentators, You can understand that (alongside darts) this is a game that gets actuaries going.

I leave at the point of a 50 partnership between Stokes and Brooks and Brooks being out. If I had only not packed up a ball ago, I could have ended “I think things are getting better for England”. I can say that this blog is more than 400 words long which registers on my VFM log.

Thanks for sticking with me – it’s 5 for 66 and Australia have placed the ball in the right places and it’s all the pitch’s fault.  There is another hour and a quarter but you won’t be hearing from me. I’m going to study the form for today’s Boxing Day meeting at Wincanton (and perhaps the odd race from Kempton.