This is a sequel to the blog on the first day of the two day boxing day ashes test match.

Yesterday, I was pretty sure we were- as we lost our first three wickets for eight runs- buried for a fourth day and the umpteenth tour down under – in a row – down and out.

We may still lose this match and my phone has run out as I lie under the sheets so I’m blogging at tea time which is somewhere near 4 am.  This is the second Christmas time blog in two days and it will almost certaintly carry us through to the end of what Jonathan Agnew is calling a “a train out of control heading for the buffers”.

The score a few minutes in is 95-2 with England only 80 runs or get bowled out and then the match will be over and the weekend that we had planned will not quite happen!

This is what happened to Australia in its second innings by the way, it should have been a two day innings, but it wasn’t.

Here is the applause for the triumphally dead Shaun Warne and here is our score (it’s gone up quite a lot since I last typed!

I fell asleep when Head’s wicket fell and look at how boring Australia were, for not having strike rates over 75. England are rattling along at around 6 an over and Phil Tufnell is talking like we’ve got there yet and we haven’t.

There are of course people waking up to this and having no idea of what’s happening. Those like me, who have been up most of the night are able to make some kind of logical narrative of all this – not that any of it matters (as we’ve lost the Ashes) as the Australians in the house will no doubt remind us.

There are 92,

000 in the stadium to watch the game, no one will be watching tomorrow but there is a sell out for tomorrow and this is going to cost $13m (Aus.) from ticket and TV refunds. This reminds me that the length of grass on a wicket means so much, the groundsman is the villain!

Of course this is how we manager our relationship with Australia over finance. I am reading Bec Wilson telling us Brits how to live our retirement. I bet she is being taken more seriously in the light of this test match series!

Here is a comment on the blog she wrote for the Times (published here yesterday)

When considering the Australian Super system, we have to remember that employer contributions of 12% of Ordinary Time Earnings are mandatory with rules concerning lump sum and irregular payments but with no compulsory employee or self employed contributions.  So it is effectively employers that are funding the Australian pension system and it is not essentially a savings based pension system like the DC system in the UK.

In the UK the employers effectively funded the guaranteed defined benefit system that was the norm until the 1980s or 1990s and which fell out of favour partly due to employers claiming the cost was too high and put them at a competitive disadvantage against international competitors (particularly US owned enterprises).Perhaps we should back at our previous experiences before trying to import yet another pension system which is likely to have unforeseen future consequences.

Bec is all about doing sensible things all of the time. You can’t do that in favouring the bowlers. Bring back five day games, struggling to get much beyond the tea-break on the second day. This is the second two day match after the Perth test (which we lost).

Sport definitely doesn’t include spending Christmas upside down for me. I was at Wincanton racecourse yesterday watching great racing in the West Country and even greater racing at Kempton (“Harry on the wing” as we used to sing at Bournemouth)

Crawley’s lost his wicket as I reminisced about yesterday! We’re still hitting fours as Root is in and surely we cannot lose with 59 (now 56) runs needed. It’s 5 am and we have hours more to go today (and no rainclouds to save the groundman and the accountants).

Joe Root has now batted 3o – now 31  balls without scoring a run and wow- he scores a run off his 32nd ball over two innings (20 balls with a run in innings one).

That’s Yorkshire in the man I suppose someone will say. Soon it will be 50 for the match and soon it is! Now they are talking about a 20 overs game tomorrow when the test match will be over.

We are under 40 runs to go but Bethell’s lost his wicket at 40 when he was threatening to be the first batsman in the match to get to 50 (which only Root can do now). The commentators see the possibility with Brook in to lose it from here but Brook is defending.

We get four byes which makes Root 12, extras 12 and runs till this innings is the highest of the test’s four – 12. I should have been an actuary (not).

Root is out with less than 20 runs left and Stokes at the crease.

We are now 10 runs away from victory and the Barmies are an army at the MCG.  But our captain is the 6th man out with only four wickets left (and Atkinson injured).

7 runs now after wicky Smith gets a three. Blogging every run/wicket left in the match .

Brook hits a four with a head down whistler with a flick of the wrist. Three to go and Brook wants to do it with one ball with a Baz Ball.

Three days to score 3 runs.

There’s a no ball or two and the scores are level

There are leg byes for four and England have won their first Ashes in 15 years.

In play? – It’s over!