Colly! Jimmy! Monty!

Ah yes, now I remember what Ashes cricket feels like: the miserable business of being both unable to watch and unable to take your eyes off it.

Here’s the first Test: one day of hope and then rude disillusionment. One morning of fun. Two and a half days of grinding tedium and black despair. One day of unbearable tension. A moment of ecstatic joy, at a draw.

It’s a sad sporting fact that prolonged tension and pain are the norms, but prolonged joy is impossible (because a comprehensive thrashing quickly becomes ennui). Test cricket takes this truism to its limit in a way that no other sport can. Ashes cricket is the worst because of the weight of a warped history.

I hate the bloody Ashes, and I hate the fact that I have to wait three whole days for the next Test to start.