Trotty’s Knock

So we won the Ashes back. Hurrah!

Terrific to win it of course, and a great series, but this was nothing like 2005. The 2005 Ashes was a contest between two almost equally excellent sides, whereas this was a contest between two almost equally flawed and fragile sides. 2009 didn’t lack for entertainment, and was at times almost as nailbiting as 2005, but they’ll sell much fewer DVDs and there’ll be no Trafalgar Square parade. But then what could ever match 2005? It was perfect and unrepeatable and it towers over any other sporting event I've witnessed - pointless to keep comparing things with it.

Anyway, three things stood out for me in this evening's post-match gloats:

1) while we already knew that cricket nickname protocol states that you add an “ey” to the player's surname (or a shortened version thereof), we learned today that when somebody’s name already ends in an “ey”, you simply drop it. Thus Michael “Clarkey” Clarke referred to Mike Hussey not as “Huss-ey” nor even “Hussey-ey” but as plain old “Huss”.

2) Stuart “Broady” Broad came up (deliberately, one hopes) with a really good name for a band, when he praised “Trotty’s knock”.

3) Both captain Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower were eager to spread the net of credit for the victory beyond the eleven on the pitch at the Oval to “all fourteen players” used in the series, charitably namechecking Kevin Pietersen, Monty Panesar and Graham Onions.

Poor old Ravi Bopara; already the Forgotten Man.