I’ve been having difficulty sleeping over the last few weeks. I felt like I was suffering from jetlag as I found myself sitting in front of the TV for hours on end watching the cricket. I probably watched somewhere close to 65% of the first Test live and it absolutely played havoc with my sleep patterns. My health was taking a real battering from the lack of sleep and the excessive caffeine. If Gillian McKeith had looked at my poo she would have called the mortuary.

Incidentally, if it’s true that you are what you eat, does this mean that Gillian McKeith has eaten a bulldog licking piss off a nettle?

Anyway, I digress. The black bags under my eyes had got to the size where the local council tried to collect them on bin day. My body was shot to pieces and it was all the fault of the cricket.

Fortunately along came Les Burdett, curator groundsman for the Adelaide Oval. Since the beginning of the second Test I have has some of my best nights sleep in years. OK so my back is a little stiff and the patch of drool on the armchair is spreading but it’s been great to turn on Sky TV at 12.25am and be in the land of nod by 12.40am.

Forget your over the counter sleeping pills, turn on the Test match at the Adelaide Oval and you’ll be asleep in ten minutes or your money back!

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