Like most cricket fans, I love stats. I can’t get enough of them. Anyone who has ever played against Iver Heath will tell you that we are a team obsessed with the darned things. We can tell members of the opposition exactly how many runs they got in a day against us, what the bowling figures were, what colour socks they wore. Even if we don’t know the answer, we put across such a compelling argument that you end up believing us.

I’m one of the worst. I used to maintain the clubs stats until it got to the point where I’d wake up in the middle of the night to see what the club record partnership was between two batsmen with surnames beginning with the letter Y. It had to stop. I passed on the scorebooks to our skipper and have let him have the sleepless nights instead.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I’ve spent a bit of time today looking at my Google stats. I wanted to see what people were typing into the search engine to find Flintoffs Ashes.

Unsurprisingly 54% of all searches contain the word “ashes” and 32% of all searches contain “Flintoff”.

For the 7.8% of people looking for words to the Barmy Army songs, click here

For the 4.3% of people who are looking for Barmy Army merchandise, click on the link to the left or visit The SportsHQ

Now it gets interesting…

2.2% of all searches are looking for pictures of players wives.

1.3% contain the word “twat”.

3.2% of people are looking for the songs written by Aussie comedian Greg Champion so perhaps I’ll revise the twat count to 4.5%.

For the person looking for pictures of Andrew Flintoffs sister, I’m afraid I can’t help. Will the picture of Dawn French help you?

Finally, and without doubt my favourite, will whoever typed “you smell of wee” into Google please let me know exactly what you were looking for?

Tags : Cricket, The Ashes, England, Australia, Flintoff, Google, Barmy Army

I dozed off at some point during the second session of the day. When I woke up Collingwood and Pieterson were still there but I didn’t pay too much attention to the score so I’m going to have to catch some highlights to see the stumping and also Freddies dismissal because picking up on the word around the blogosphere, they both threw their wickets away.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. 293-5 with a day to go. Basically five wickets in 80 overs BUT a thunderstorm is on it’s way and due to hit The Gabba mid afternoon. Could it happen? Could we somehow escape with a draw in this Test? Can you imagine the stick Ponting would get if we did manage to salvage something from this game?

I’ve started a rain dance and I urge all English cricket fans to do the same. Basically it involves swaying from one foot to another, nodding my head backwards and forwards in a rythmic fashion and chanting “Rain, you bastard, rain!”.

It might just work.

Tags : Cricket, The Ashes, England, Australia, First Test

I’m not really sure quite what the point of Australia carrying on batting was. Sure, Langer gets his ton but why stop there? If the point is to rub England noses in it, why not carry on? Get them to chase 700-750.

Oh well, all pretty much Roger Irrelevant anyway. It’s just a case of seeing how many of the remaining five sessions England can bat out.

The caffeine/Kronenbourg mix is playing havoc with my brain at the moment. I’ve just read back the last few posts on here. I don’t think all these sleepless nights are doing me any favours. Still, got a few days of ‘normal’ life again until it all kicks off again.

I’ve already made the decision to catch the Perth Test from lunch each day. A 5am start to the viewing day makes much more sense.

Oh well, off to the loo, have a smoke, put together another pot of coffee and away we go again. Come on, Dawn! Hurry up and start a tune. I need some sleep!

Tags : Cricket, The Ashes, England, Australia, First Test

Tags : Cricket, The Ashes, England, Australia, First Test

I’d had enough by about 3am, to be honest. I couldn’t take any more. Having been an England cricket fan for most of my life, I’ve seen some poor performances but this one somehow feels personal.

Whenever I see Ponting chatting away to Gilchrist or Warne, I feel that he’s saying “That’ll teach the pommie bastard for calling me a random fuckin’ chimp“.

In some ways I’m surprised they didn’t force the follow through on but, then again, this is all about making a statement. It’s all about grinding England into the dirt. It’s about totally demoralising them before the start of the second Test on Friday.

Y’know what? I think it’s working

Tags : Cricket, The Ashes, England, Australia, First Test