Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity’s central character, Rob, is a record store owner and list maker extraordinaire. I guess it’s a bloke thing, lists. Most of us empathise with Rob. We love a good list. One of my pals Chubby is an extension of this phenomenon. He’s a team-maker.

Texts, tweets, emails, whenever, however. If there’s an opinion to be had on sport, it’ll be winging its way to me, extemporised in the form of eleven (or fifteen) names. Win or lose, new era or not, Chubbs will have an opinion and I’ll usually be the first to know it. He’s not been in touch yet re yesterday’s big cricket news which must mean he’s really got his thinking cap clamped on.

The fallout from the Graeme Swann retirement is still swilling around social media circles like bitter sediment at the bottom of a cask. The great man has gone, let’s move on. Stop expending pointless energy on whether his decision was ‘cowardly’ or ‘traitorous’ (it wasn’t either of these by the way) and look to the future. The immediate future is the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Thursday. I am fairly sure England will line up like this.

Cook (c)
Carberry
Root
Pietersen
Bell
Bairstow (wk)
Stokes
Broad
Bresnan
Anderson
Panesar

Yep, there’s yet another list on its way. In the long term England are at the beginning of a new era so must plan accordingly. Michael Carberry deserves another crack at the Test arena, although in a year or two will make way for either Joe Root or Alex Lees as partner for captain Alastair Cook at the top of the order. Ian Bell is a shoo-in at four. Johnny Bairstow will come good. Stephen Davies is the best wicket keeper in the country so should come into the team. Durham have given England their newest star, Ben Stokes and his colleague Scott Borthwick, the young leggie, should be a de facto replacement for Swann. Stuart Broad is now in essence the attack leader and Steven Finn, I am confident, will come back a better player next year. Tymal Mills is bloomin’ quick and should be given a chance at the highest level with James Harris and Chris Jordan next in line for a Test call up.

Cook (c)
Carberry
Root
Bell
Bairstow
Davies (wk)
Stokes
Borthwick
Broad
Finn
Mills

Correspondence from Mr Chubb, incoming I dare say. We do it because we love it. We do it because we care. Even if it makes not a jot of difference.

Lists. Teams. Prattle.

A rainy Sunday morning in Melbourne and the shock news that Graeme Swann, one of the best players of his generation, has retired from the game with immediate effect has hit me hard. It’s been a tough few weeks following England and today’s developments have exacerbated this.

Elizabeth Street is teeming with shoppers dodging the showers making their way towards the busy Queen Victoria Market. Still reeling from the news, I head to what has become our local cafe for a restorative Long Black to be met by the grinning Greg.

‘Bad news about Swanny’ I say. ‘Dreadful’ Greg agrees. Then he fixes me one of his trademark smiles, there’s hope heading my way somewhere in his next sentence. With Arthur Daley assuredness he drags me into his scheme. I feel like Edmund Blackadder in the eye of a gathering Baldrick cunning plan storm.

‘You know there’s only one man who can save us here don’t you?’

I know exactly who he means but magnanimously I let him finish his own point. I brace myself.

‘Tredders’.

It’s another belter. But then Greg is one of life’s optimists. When he isn’t being unfailingly positive, he’s being unfailingly loyal to one of his sports teams. Usually it’s England or Arsenal but mainly it’s Kent County Cricket Club and their underachieving, under-appreciated band of brothers.
He reserves particular affection for their erstwhile captain and jobbing England ODI player James Tredwell. On another tour in New Zealand, I lost count of the amount of times Tredwell’s name was presented as the answer to England’s problems (not that we had any back then, by the way…). I’m only surprised it’s taken Greg ten days to crowbar his beloved Tredwell in here.

The last time I saw Greg he asked me, in all seriousness, to prepare the preface to his debut book, ‘Tredwell’s Ashes’, the inside story of how, against all odds, one man inspired a nation to victory over their oldest foes. For one reason or another (but mainly because Tredwell left his position half way through the season winless and comparatively wicket-less and wasn’t even thought of, let alone picked for England) the book never saw the light of day.

‘It’s made for him’ Greg continues. ‘He’ll take Swanny’s position at second slip, bat at number four and spin us to victory in the remaining Tests.’

‘What do you think?’

Silence. Reflective silence.

Following England. You don’t have to be mad to do it.

But it helps.

The saviour of English cricket? Err, probably not.

There should be more to put in here today than this.

But I can’t walk past a one man band, in the middle of Melbourne, on the last Saturday before Christmas without taking a picture of him.

I’m only human.

And here, for good measure and on a similar theme, is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMuItKJGBzY

Have a great weekend.

I told them, I said to them, ‘Lads,’ I said, ‘Would I ever let you down? I mean, look at this.’

‘You’ve got your space to swing a quokka (for earlier in the day the boys had enjoyed a day on Rottnest Island, the exclusive home of the aforementioned macropod), you’ve got your air conditioning. What more could you possibly want?’

‘How about this, in hostel form, on a full time basis. For the rest of the tour….’

And with that, we glumly boarded the midnight plane to Melbourne. Like Andre Villas-Boas, I think I may have lost the dressing room.

‘Lads?’

‘Err, lads?’

‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’ etc etc. Exuent, pursued by a stare. And a jolly harsh one at that.

A quokka, yesterday.

My beloved England have just lost The Ashes. We’ve been out-thought and outplayed in every game so far and are in all sorts of bother but, but, at least we don’t do team photos like this.

What on earth is that all about? Is this the most homoerotic shot of an international cricket team ever taken?

Don Bradman would turn in his grave.

There’s a traditional ditty sung at birthdays and stag nights that burns through to the very core of my soul. It’s sung in all oblivious innocence in my presence by people who aren’t in on the joke. For those who are, it’s sung as a rapier-like riposte, the tip of which pierces the soul like the sight of your best fast bowler being flayed back over his head for six. ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’ they’ll lustily sing, eyes pointing like daggers my way, smirks with razor-sharp edges.

Occasionally my mates will just sing this without waiting for an occasion. ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’. It still hurts.

Several years ago I organised a Stag Do (it may even have been my own, I wasn’t even getting married, it didn’t matter) to the West Coast of Ireland. As tradition dictates everything fell to me to arrange, which, having done a few of these tours before, I undertook this task with customary enthusiasm with nothing overlooked or left to chance.

We would fly the red eye from Luton to get to our transit destination, Knock, for breakfast. We’d then get to our destination proper, Galway, for a weekend’s worth of salty badinage and the type of drinking sessions the late, lamented Peter O’Toole may have been proud of.

A gin-soaked EasyJet flight from Luton was followed by a lot of waiting around at Knock airport for, seemingly, the only six-seater taxi journey of the day to George Town, the closest town to Knock Airport. In this time Welsh Andy broke the Guinness World Record for Speedy Stout Skulling as impatience infiltrated our close knit group like boozy wildfire. Unluckily, we had to wait some more time for a bus, and rather than doing something sensible like completing the sudoku or playing I-Spy, we availed ourselves of one or two of the local hostelries to raise the hedonism levels another notch.

Couldn’t we just have gone to Edinburgh instead?

Glances were shot my way, bitter murmurings had permeated the sweet drunk talk. In short, my abilities as the group’s peerless party planner were being called into question. What had seemed such a good idea at the time was now looking insanely daft.

Couldn’t we just have gone out in London instead?

The bus journey, when it eventually came, was the longest three hours of my life, longer, even, than the complete hash I made of my History A-Level exam. We trashed the bus. I sobered up enough to sink into the depths of despair as the chaos raged all around me. Oliver Cromwell himself would’ve been made more welcome had he embarked at one of the pretty villages we passed through.

Couldn’t we just have gone out in Bedford instead?

After an eternity, we reached Galway. I don’t know how we made it off the coach into the next pub, but we did.
We’re met there by Eats’ cousin. ‘What took you so long? she asked. Sheepishly I spoke up.
‘Well, the airlines running from Luton fly only to Knock which is, quite clearly, the nearest airport to Galway. We’ve had to get a bus down here. I’ll be honest, when I booked it, it seemed reasonably straightforward.’

‘Yeah, you know all the Irish airlines fly from Luton straight to Galway.’

The jukebox ceased. Drinks were slammed down on the table. The whole pub, no, the entire town seemed to be looking at me. The world stopped. My knees gave. My throat dried. My soul sunk like a ten pence piece to the bottom of a pint glass.

I slowly turned round to look at my mates. Anger, visceral hatred, then laughter. Howls and howls of raucous laughter.

‘For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow….’

I think you know where this is going….

It’s the end. We’re comfortably past the beginning and slap bang in the middle of it. My drinking partner Rex beckons me on. To the bar, with our heads on the bar. Meanwhile, England’s head is on the chopping block.

I’m stood in a crowd of boastful boorish Aussies, and no wonder. Against expectations their lot have pummeled my lot into the dust. In pursuit of an outlandish target to save the game and the series, we’ve lost our brave captain, our bright young thing and the bloke who’s style resembles best my youngest brother’s (stylish top order batsman, quality fielder, gets more starts than a set of second hand jump leads*). Our expansive, misunderstood best player will shortly be out, holing out.

Again.

My pals leave me momentarily to top up their tans and formulate the final plans for Operation Orange. At least some good can come from this morass of a performance unfolding before our eyes.

I am there alone with my thoughts.

The temperature’s down on the last few days and it’s a breathable 37 (I may even bring a jumper tomorrow), a warm breeze blows through the crowded Members bar. Sweat stained replica shirts take leave of their dappled bodies to billow temporarily in the breeze. Local lovelies ranging between the beautiful and the bawdy keep their drunken spouses company. A nation waits to celebrate and some have started early.

In ponderous mood, my mind wanders.

We’re getting hammered. Badly hammered. In the backyard of our oldest foes. I shouldn’t be enjoying this.

But oddly I am. Despite everything, there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be right now. Oh, cricket, English cricket. I don’t know why I love you but I do.

*Just kidding brother, love ya. And thanks for the contribution to the war chest.

The Ocean Beach Hotel, Cottesloe, Perth. Within a year this has become one of my favourite places on God’s earth.

I probably need to come back.

There is the glory. The indescribable moment of hard earned triumph, the palpable sense of achievement when there are no worlds left to conquer. You stand alone at the top, surveying the vanquished below, as the adulation washes over you. Life seldom gets better.
Then there’s the polar opposite of this. The feeling of crushing defeat. Everything hurts. The sight of your opponent towering over you, the contemptuous sneer hidden somewhere in the victory smile and the consolatory handshake. The other side of solitude, this feeling of being utterly isolated as your world collapses around you.

On a stiflingly Sunday afternoon at the WACA and after some years of drinking in the former, England’s cricketers are suddenly very well versed in the latter. Unfolding before the gleeful eyes of a braying home support and a disbelieving away following, was the slow death of a once great cricket team. In temperatures of over 40 degrees, Alastair Cook’s team simply melted in the face of the onslaught from the Australians.

Once again their opportunities to take anything from the match, indeed from the series, had disappeared. Once again the sheer dominance of Michael Clarke’s side struck a painful blow. Having been bowled out for a below par first innings total, Australia’s opening batsmen, with the odious but seemingly omnipotent David Warner to the fore, tore into England who wilted in the heat like a sweaty, beered up fat man. The lead is over three hundred, though the total is irrelevant now as surviving sessions on this spitting cobra of a WACA pitch is all that is left for England. So, barring a miraculous rearguard action of the proportions witnessed in Auckland in March, England have lost the Ashes within three Test matches.

The fall from grace and disappearance of the smiles of late summer has been excruciatingly swift. Few could have predicted this cataclysmic change of fortunes and the shift in power between these two teams. But England must learn from this. Cricket Australia should be lauded for the way they have turned their fortunes around within a year. This current Australian team will never be mentioned among the greats but at present they are a formidable outfit. The pace and relentless hostility of the bowling line up is possibly the strongest in world cricket at the moment. In Clarke and Warner, Australia have world class batsmen and the rejuvenation of Brad Haddin has been a huge factor in their meteoric rise. Even Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon look like proper cricketers.

What now for England then? Much of this team have been wonderful cricketers and have given their all for their country in the recent successful years but now it is time to move on.
The current Andy Flower coaching set up has been the foundation of England’s success but it is time for them to go. Paul Collingwood should be reintroduced to the national set up as coach with an older wiser head (maybe not an Englishman) to guide him. Collingwood has the association with the glory years, the respect of his peers and the energy, the skills as well as the forward-thinking to be England’s new head coach. Will the ECB be brave enough to go for him?

One telling scene of yesterday afternoon’s play was the sight of England’s wicketkeeper Matt Prior crouched behind the stumps long after the ball had beaten him to the boundary for another four runs. He stayed in his position for thirty odd seconds, the weight of his problems seemingly preventing him from getting up. His deportment suggested his and his team’s recent troubles have got to this most energetic and positive of individuals. He looked a beaten man.
Prior has been the world’s best for the last two years but it is time to stand this most loyal of servants down. Similarly, James Anderson, Kevin Pieterson and Tim Bresnan should be allowed to slip quietly away from the Test arena. They all, like Prior, have given England fans such brilliant memories but the sport looks to have finally, fatally consumed them.

If England do escape with a draw here, which seems unlikely, it is simply a matter of papering over the cracks. The ECB must start to install wholesale changes if England are to ever get back to being the world’s number one cricket team and those halcyon days.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A fresh start in a new job and the achievable goal of getting back on the road as soon as possible. Save, save, save. Get out to Australia again to watch Captain Cook and his brave lads as they do battle with their bitter rivals in yet another instalment of one of sport’s oldest rivalries.
At the end of August this plan was beginning to bear fruit. The flights were booked, some of the match tickets too, and for good measure England, in a gloriously hot, tenaciously contested series, had triumphed 3-0.

Confidence was high among my fellow supporters, who, buoyed by their team’s seemingly un-shiftable grip on the trophy booked flights in their thousands to board the bandwagon bound for Brisbane. Then the wheels came off.

Oh, how they came off.

Two right hammering a later, the minutiae I won’t go into here- you can read that pretty much everywhere else on the cricket pages of the Internet but it has a lot to do with the miraculous return form of Mad Mitch (pictured below)- and it looks like the worst idea since Stuart Sutcliffe decided etching over strumming would be a sounder career choice.

And, as if the miserable state of affairs England find themselves in wasn’t enough, there’s even pressure on me to deliver too. ‘Go out there and bring the boys some luck’ seems to be the overriding sentiment of the well wishers bidding me farewell for my latest voyage.

‘Bring England luck.’

Me?

Really?

What, like the sort of luck I’ve brought my football team, Luton Town in over twenty years of following them. Or, the sort of fantastic luck I’ve had with my career? Or my legendary luck with the opposite sex?

Have things got that bad?

Never one to shirk a challenge, with my whites safely stowed, my levels of contempt for Australian beer topped up and, especially after that last comment on the previous paragraph, tongue firmly in cheek, I embark for Australia carrying the hopes of a nation. Or at least the good people of a few villages in Mid-Bedfordshire.

And anyway, despite the score in the series looking as parlous as it does currently, there are a lot worse places to follow your favourite team to. I saw the ‘atters get beat 7-1 at Grimsby in freezing January once for goodness sake.

Sleeves rolled up, upper lip suitably stiffened I head to Australia for the last three Test Matches in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney with the odds stacked against my beloved team. Come on England. I still believe.

Altogether now, ‘Three-two, we’re gonna win three-two….’