Once more unto the breach
On the Rust we are honest enough to make light of our mission and indeed pay tribute where tribute is due. In recent weeks, cricket has regularly been in the headlines – in the case of the male version of the game, in the context of the epic World Cup victory and now the happily tense and fascinating Ashes Series, the television coverage of which has – in the Hollingworth family at least – featured regularly as a daily accompaniment in the background of whatever else has been going on in our lives.
After the excitements of Edgbaston and Lord’s, the Ashes circus has now moved to Headingley (without Aussie talisman Steve Smith, still recovering from concussion issues) with a mood of “This is Make or Break” surrounding the England camp.
Those Ruster followers of cricket will not need me to re-heat for them the tale of the Australians’ first innings and Jofra Archer’s figures of 6 for 45 which cemented his status as a new world star.
Nor, indeed, will they need me to lay out the travails of the England’s reply yesterday – one of the most feeble displays I have ever witnessed among a depressingly long list of English batting disasters down the decades. The air of half-anticipated but increasing gloom Chez Nous yesterday as wicket after wicket fell and we few watching in the drawing room felt compelled to shout updates to those necessarily engaged elsewhere in the building – to inevitable reactions of exasperated groans and “Are you being serious?”-themed queries straight from the How To Be a Long-Suffering England Cricket Fan handbook, published by Rust Books Ltd, RRP £9.99 from all high street supermarkets and good independent bookshops – was overwhelming.
Which brings me to my favourite – for both its humour and insight – overnight UK newspaper report upon yesterday’s Ashes play, penned by Andy Bull. I have no hesitation in recommending it to Rusters and raise my hat to him this morning for his sheer quality and readability – see here, on the website of – THE GUARDIAN
