In Praise of Testing Times

So officially I've torn a calf muscle. A proper tennis player's injury, I'm told, so that makes me a proper tennis player.

This has meant being pretty much trussed up at home, hopping about between fridge and table using a mixture of beer and ibuprofen to dull the pain. Once the leg's better, I'll drop the ibuprofen.

My senses were by no means dulled enough to not excruciating the Japanese water torture of the first Ashes test match at Trent Bridge, mind you.

Midway through day 2 I was warming my heart on a torrid Australian batting after a collapse that wouldn't have looked out of place in an acceptance speech for Best Actress. Then out came Agar (wobbling like a jelly is Agar, I thought). He then proceeded to give us a series of impressions of cricket's greatest left-handers, ending with a Goweresque waft to midwicket.

Midway through day 3 I was chewing legs off kitchen chairs as I realised all our hopes resting on th slender shoulders and sawdust mind of one Ian Bell, a man who responds to pressure like a soap bubble. And yet here he was all touch and timing - one of the most elegant grinding-outs of an innings you will ever see and we were back in the ascendancy.

Our 12th man, Aleem Dar, could only help the cause after missing the biggest nick since Alcatraz. And suddenly there was no way England were going to lose. Midway through the morning of day 5 and here we all were jumping around with Jimmy as poor old Siddle to a blistering horizontal catch by Alistair Cook. That's Cook, the bloke with the Teflon fingers. Job done. Agar was already out, but that just meant that the latest Australian bunny had to be pulled out of the hutch or the hat.

The lad Pattinson then made another mockery of the batting order and looked more comfy than me Nan in a deckchair on Seaton Carew beach. They scraped and clawed - and when Finn was bowling positively scarpered - towards their ungettable target and if it wasn't for a timely lunch - during which the only food consumed by anyone I knew were fingernails - and not just my own - that would have been that.

Then Haddin, who batted so brilliantly, nicked it behind and, like a typical larrikin, refused to walk and we had to go upstairs to Erasmus. I understand the third umpire for the next Test will be Martin Luther - and he'll be a lot more clear-cut about the stumpings that this bloke.

Any road, turns out that Hot-Spot, Snicko, and hearing summat  all added up to Haddin's dismissal and England had squeezed home. Again.

Technology has come leaping to the fore again. It seems to throw up as many disputes as it solves. Me, I'm happy with it and as Aussie skipper Clarke says, he's just got to use it better. It would help, of course, if Sky had that technology to hand when it was needed - and if Mr Erasmus used it to make the right decision the great twot. Along with Cowan and Finn, I think he'll be lucky to see service at Lord's.

But anyone who thinks Test cricket is (a) dull and (b) dead could do worse than watch every second of this Test match back. Most of the dullest cricket matches I've seen in recent years have been tedious Twenty20's where the result is known long before the end has arrived. For a sport to maintain its fascination and tension for four and a half days is a testament to its form, its intrigue and the skill of its participants.

None more so than Jimmy Anderson. Here's a man whose mastery of his art has reached mesmeric proportions. And he's from Burnley! Were he a Pakistani quick with such magical ability, he would no doubt be fending off accusations of jiggery-pokery and sleight of hand that might perhaps be 'against the spirit of the game'.

Which brings us on to Stuart Broad and his refusal to walk. Aussies don't walk. They're told not to at a young age. This is sport. The officials make the decisions and you abide by them. Every so often you'll get a shit one to balance out the decision that went in your favour. It's unfortunate that human beings make these decisions but what can you do?

I'm with Broady. It's best not to help them out if you can help it. If that's not fair then just give him a charge of bringing the game into disrepute and we'll look again at whatever the hell the phrase 'Spirit of the Game' is supposed to mean.

Those that disapprove tend to be the chinless toffs who don't and never have relied on cricket as their main source of income. I mean there's no point in doing any of this chicanery if it's just a hobby you indulge in while you wait for pater to die so you can inherit half of Hampshire. Get over yourselves, chaps.

By the by, because I eschew pouring my hard-earned into the accounts of that wrinkled old Australian bollock Murdoch I've been enduring all this gut-wrenching tension via the medium of Test Match Special. It's the only time I allow transparent toffs to infect the air of the family home, be it Blofeld, his voice fruitier that a bumper crop from the Vale of Evesham, or Aggers jousting in a barely disguised class war with the hard-bitten oik that is Boycs.

Somehow it serves cricket just as well, if not better, than the tired old lunks on Sky. Only two days til the next one. Can't wait. My dear old thing.