Put the Champers on Ice, just for a few hours

Over Christmas I put all my alcohol in the shed to keep it cold, such has been the chill in Britian's air for the past few weeks. Were it not for my January detox, I would have been tempted to have reached for a bottle of Tesco's finest Asti last night to celebrate Englands 3rd innings victory over Australia this winter, which will no doubt be completed on Friday 7th, but it's probably advised to wait until formalities are completed later on in Sydney before counting Englands collective hatched chickens.

Cricket is a curious game. England stand 150 runs ahead of Australia, with the Aussie's having only 2 more batsmen in the pavillion to come after Smith and Siddle, and even if they should miraculously get close to overturning that 150, England still have another innings in hand, should they need it (which they won't). Yet despite the magificent situation England find themselves in, the celebrations must surely wait until the morning.

Mike Atherton said, shortly after Chris Tremlett cleaned up Michell Johnson to give him a golden duck, "the Barmy Army will want this wrapped up tonight so they can "get on it!"" Indeed. No doubt the Army will hit it hard tonight, irrespective of whether victory had been sewen up or not, and the players will do so too when they're done knocking over Steve Smith (possibly the worst test selection I've ever come across) Sid "Vicious" Siddle, "Gentle" Ben Hilfenhaus and Michael "Low Alcohol" Beer, and why not, the Army have contributed greatly to what has been the greatest tour of Australia I certainly have ever seen, so good luck to them.

But what will the players do tonight? How do you recoil and contain all that emotion for 12 hours and then come back and finish the job off the next day? It's the equivalent of a football match with the score at 5-0 being postponed in the 85th minute because it starts snowing (topical!). Are you really going to trudge back and start again in the morning?

I know in sport it's always advised, "Don't get complacent," but surely in this scenario, there's got to be a bit of you that thinks, "You know what lads, I think the job's half done here, have a glass of wine with dinner." Do you think Strauss or Flower will offer that? If Freddie was still around I am sure he'd be pushing for that, but as good as Freddie was, he wouldn't get in this team, this team is way to disciplined for him, even Pieterson is starting to look like he's a little on borrowed time, his dismissal in this game was so needless and surely you have to ask yourself, "Do we still need him like we once did", because with Cook, Trott and Bell playing so beautifully right now, it doesn't look like we do so much.

Tomorrow will be a massive party. I'm hoping that Collingwood will be brought on to bowl when Australia are 9 down to get the last wicket. Everything has gone England's way so far this series on the whole, so why not a final test wicket for our own "Mr Cricket"? Hopefully we'll knock them over sharpish and I can get to my pit before the 01:30 I've been doing for most of this week and most of the series before Christmas too. It's been a labour of love, but well worth the effort. The margin of victory and the difference in class and preperation of the 2 teams have been staggering and 3-1 would be a fair reflection, 3-0 would perhaps have been even fairer, but we'll take 3-1.

We'll never see Collingwood play another test for England again. He's been a heck of a good servant, even if not the best batsman all the time, but he goes out at the absolute pinnacle. Shame the same won't be said for some of the Aussies like Ponting, who will surely go now and give way to some new blood. Hilfenhaus,  Smith and Catich will surely also depart for being distinctly average, distinctly poor, and distinctly old respectively. But that's not our problem. Our only worry is when to open the bubbly now. Well, not right now, but soon!


All together now, "He bowls to the left, he bowls to the ri-i-ight, that Michell Johnson, his bowling is Sh!te"