It was Lila day. I was busy. She was busy. We were all busy. She runs round in fearless manic fashion, I’m there to provide moral support and damage limitation. And to listen. To the non-stop stream of wonderful consciousness that emerges from her 2 year, 4 month old mouth. A lot of it slightly mispronounced due to the difficulty of certain sounds. Like L, G and J. And her name’s Lila and her brother is Joey. Yiya and Doey. Other words are pronounced so beautifully, so classically, that you feel you’re listening to the BBC with a high voice. Home. Phone.

Lila don’t like cricket. Not my favourite of sports anyway. But… but… but… it is the Ashes and it is Australia and… well… So I just checked the score every now and then (‘now and then’ is officially 14 minutes in cricket time; for football its different). And by lunchtime ‘it was all over’. Almost. Those pesky Aussies were batting and had slumped to an amazing 105 for 5. They were ‘at our mercy’. I’ll be over by tea! I optimistically thought. Not their innings, the whole first test. Out by lunch, we score 437 in one hour and bowl them out for 35 in their second innings. Job done. Game over. Get’cher money back.

But I hadn’t figured on Steve Smith. The disgraced and disgraceful (the former for cheating, the second for crying on tv whilst holding his dad’s hand) ex-captain of the Aussies just would not be budged yesterday. So as all his compatriots fell and crumbled and played like… well, like hapless Aussies, says it all really. Whilst all around him burned, like Nero fiddling, Smith played the innings of his (sad and awful and cheaty) life. Even I found some newfound respect for the scummy little shit.

Smithy was banned for a year from test cricket for his ‘ball tampering’ whilst captain. Tried, sentenced and banned by Cricket Australia. Hmmmmm. Oh, that’s impartial. No conflict of interests there then. Here’s our best ever cricketer who we must punish, yet we all lose out by his absence… Let’s just ban him for a year and have him back for the Ashes!! Brilliant!! Looks like we care, looks like we’re doing the right thing but he’ll only miss some meaningless matches against Fiji, Switzerland and The Maldives. Great idea.

If Australia viewed ‘ungentlemanly’ conduct in the same way as civilised countries, Smith would still be in a prison cell in Siberia. NOT HITTING THE SHIT OUT OF OUR BOWLERS AT EDGBASTON.

Happy Second Day of the Test

A xxxx