Australia won the toss and batted and we cheered loud and hard as in the first over Caddick induced a hook in the air straight to long leg. However, the cheering soon dissipated as we realised that immediately prior to that delivery, captain Hussain had moved the man from the exact position where the ball landed to about 10m away and it being Harmison, this was too much ground to cover. Hayden (the batsman) was on 0 at the time. This seemed like an ominous mistake.

England toiled away honestly for the rest of the day and the Australians appeared tied down at first before our lack of line and length began to see the ball crashed around the ground. Soon enough, Hayden was celebrating the addition of a 1 and 0 to his what-should-have-been 0. It was a familiar feeling and by the end of the day England were already in a bad position with the other opener looking set for a double hundred. However, it was still a highly enjoyable day's play and England could learn a lot about proper stadia and ticket prices. (MCG: capacity 100,000; Ticket prices: from 8 pounds. Cf Lords: 33,000; 30+ pounds & The Oval: 19,000 25+ pounds)

Not wishing to be further depressed about our national sporting incompetence [snooker, darts and rowing apart] the next few days were spent exploring Melbourne and the nearby area. Highlights included a visit to Healesville animal sanctuary where we saw many of the weird and wonderful native Aussie flora and fauna; a visit to one of the many Yarra valley wineries; and my first eve attempt at rollerblading. This last event was notable firstly for me wiping out on exiting the hire shop, and secondly for the unfortunate asymmetry in working out how to accelerate well before working out how to decelerate. However, I discovered that the "grab hold of a lamp post and spin around it until you come to a stop" can be a very effective, if rather unstylish method.

By the end of the 4th day of the cricket, some heroics from "Sir" Michael Vaughan meant that England had a very outside (c. 10-1) chance of victory and given the rarity of even a 10-1 chance we decided we'd go along again. With there not being likely to be more than a couple of hours play, the authorities had, remarkably, opened the gates for free admittance, thus ensuring that a large number of people were there. The day began in similar fashion to the first day with the first ball of the day being hooked high in the air off Caddick. The crucial difference was that this time there was a fielder underneath it, and despite the ball's seeming indifference to gravity it was eventually caught. The crowd (more English than Aussie) went wild and you could see the England team lift.

A highly intense period of play followed with the 2 England bowlers producing a world class display (why oh why can't they do this at the start of a match?) of extremely fast and aggressive bowling. Even Caddick was clocked at 93mph. By mid-morning, Australia were seriously wobbling before the match turned on a piece of both Australian unsportingness and English incompetence quite the match of anything in their respective illustrious histories of unsportingness and incompetence:

Harmison bowled,
Waugh clearly edged the ball
The keeper caught it
Then, nothing.

Bizarrely, and inconceivably, nobody in the England team noticed and so no appeal was made. Waugh is the sort of person who would try and make a case to stay at the wicket even if all 3 stumps were cartwheeling so he certainly wasn't going to go. It is a shame that the game has got to this but I will point out in Waugh's defence that at least half the England team would also have stood their ground and this is the modern way in professional sport.

The crowd, however, were not happy and made their feelings towards Mr. waugh felt vocally and unrepeatably. Disappointment turned to intense joy the very next ball when Waugh drilled it bullet-like to Hussain who took a blinder of a catch. Intense joy then turned to even more intense disappointment when we realised that it had been a no-ball. The match had now turned again and the Aussies, sensing luck was with them, closed out for an unconvincing win, but a win all the same. Pleasingly at least, Waugh fell before they could get there. The crowd felt we had been robbed but we certainly weren't robbed of an amazing morning's entertainment.

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